Did I damage my cartridge?

Scott,

You may indeed have bent/damaged the cantilever or suspension. Try to find someone with the same cartridge and get them to send or post a photo so you can compare cantilever angles. If it isn't obvious by now, NEVER apply more downforce to a cartridge than the maximum tracking force recommended by the manufacturer. :(

If it turns out the cantilever is okay, then here's another possibility. I used to use the ExtremePhono stylus cleaning gel, which is similar to the ZeroDust. If I let the gel get above the top of the cantilever tip, it would scoop some up like a little shovel. That stuff would then grab onto every piece of dirt it could find and hold onto it. I had to scrape it off the stylus/cantilever. Try inspecting the stylus area with a good magnifier. A detachable wide angle lens for a 35mm camera works well if you have one, film end of the lens toward the stylus.

Philjolet, that's interesting. The extremephono instructions very specifically warn you not to do that! I "think" the Zerodust is less liquid than the extremephono, so less likely to leave glop on the stylus or cantilever, but pushing down on my cartridge is not something I ever feel tempted to try. Exceeding the designed in movement range of the cantilever would be too easy.

After Zaikesman's post above I dragged out a digital scale and tried pushing very lightly on the platform, just to see how consistently gentle I could be. What I thought would be a small force instantly registered as 50-100g or more! To "push" down with just 1-3g is nothing more than the lightest possible brush of a finger, not really a push at all.

Scott, that's good news. Glad your cart is okay. Did you figure out why the sound went fuzzy?

I haven't destroyed one (yet) Zaikesman. But with two cats and a klutz of a user it's only a matter of time. Maybe I should keep an old, cheap one nearby to attract accidents. If there are two cartridges the probability that I'll wreck the expensive one is reduced by 50%, right?!