Ever Damage A Stylus Using Cleaning Brush?

Ah yes, I remember the audiophile nervosa from my first few years of high-end MC cartridge’ing :) 15 years now, some 2 dozen MC cartridges, lots of cleaning, and never any damage caused by cleaning. The real risk is too little cleaning.

It’s almost impossible to hurt a cartridge with proper bushing. If the bristles seemingly hurt the stylus or cantilever, it was on its way out anyways - how will it survive the vinyl grooves?! And yes, a damaged or missing stylus will be VERY obvious. Not slightly apparent.

I hate those little circular pad brushes with very short bristles. It means you’re getting hard plastic bits very close to the stylus / cantilever, which requires more caution (use your 2nd hand for bracing the 1st hand as necessary). Longer bristles (~ 1cm or so) also allow you to clean up & down the cantilever, keep "beards" off the front yoke piece (especially that crucial hole for the cantilever), and you can more thoroughly clean the stylus from different angles.

I don’t like carbon fiber bristles. Too soft to really knock gunk off. I like some rigidity. Cheap & cheerful nylon is fine. Artist brushes are fine (but careful if the metal ferrule is magnetic! Benz uses some very strong magnets).

I also have a Benz Ebony L (among many others) and brush it often. Great cart!

But I infer from the replies this is unlikely.  Is that because to move the stylus off center at all it would actually require a movement of the whole head shell, like when one is adjusting tracking?

It's because any forces the stylus / cantilever / suspension assembly is subjected to during proper cleaning are equal to or LESS than the forces it will be subjected to during normal playback. You ever cue the needle onto the lead-in of a 45 RPM 12" and watch it SLAM into the 1st music groove? Or accidentally drop it a bit onto the vinyl without aid of the cueing lever? I've even had an end groove fail and watched / heard my expensive stylus eat paper label a couple times. It should be fine. 

On the other hand a cleaning lady with a feather duster can exert snagging forces 100X - 1,000X greater than the above forces. That'll kill your cartridge dead, every time! These things are robust within "expected forces" of a certain range. Keep within that range, and try to relax!

Most would cringe at my Magic Eraser usage. I use a drop of water, and do a dip and then a gentle back & forth "rotational scrub" before lifting again 😂 Then repeat on a dry section. Plus a few simple dip & lifts for good measure. Use a dry brush afterword. The key is being aware "is this within NORMAL playback forces"?

I’ve done this over 3 years on my primary Koetsu Blue Lace DC cartridge. Plus other high end MC’s, too. No problems. I don’t do this quite every session - once every few sessions.

Brush the stylus well after each and every side. NO EXCEPTIONS. Brush up & down the cantilever and front yoke after every session.

I also use LAST liquid stylus cleaner after sessions when I don’t feel like doing the Magic Eraser thing.

I’ve used the Onzow and DS Audio gels in the past, when I felt like being lazy. NO PROBLEM with these. Well, the problem is that they don’t clean very well. They remove easily visible dust bunnies, sure. But if you’re collecting such large blobs on your stylus then your cleaning regimen SUCKS! The Magic Eraser and liquid cleaners help keep you diamond free of plaques & blackening (visible under magnification) and shining like new. Clean your records too, obviously. I haven’t seen a dust bunny collect on a stylus for years.

@prof

Well, even though I could swear the tone changed a bit, things still sound fantastic so I’ll have to go with "it was my imagination."

I can admit that I had a similar experience many years ago, with an Ortofon Windfeld MC. A good friend brought over a "Bad Company" LP, and unaware to both us it had a single very large granule of hard baked-on grit (even after cleaning) near the end of a side. It made a ridiculously loud BANG through my speakers and I was worried of stylus damage. Of course now I realize how audible any damage would be. But for a while I was quite paranoid "does it really sound 100% as good as it did before??". Psychology is a hell of a drug. And we also have day-to-day changes which shift our perceptions. It took me a while to settle down the paranoia. The cartridge was fine.

Since then, I carefully inspect any new-to-me records under light before playback. 

The cartridge is only about a year and a few months old.

I actually don’t want to fiddle with it unless absolutely necessary. After a very arduous cartridge alignment session a while back I hit "gold" and got the best sound I’d ever had. Not sure how easily I can repeat it.

Is is possibly still breaking in? You got at least 40 hours on it? I really like my Ebony L (despite having many other fine MCs to choose from here), but there have been PLENTY of ups and downs with it, since new. It always sounds at least good, but sometimes it’s really GREAT.

It’s still probably right around only 50 play hours. It also seems quite finicky with partnering gear for sonic matching, even down to which amp I’m using. Sometimes its bass response has been a bit reticent and other times it’s like HOLY WOW. It’s actually been sounding stellar lately (on my back arm), and I’ve resolved to leave everything as-is for a while and just enjoy the ride.

My front arm is a FR64S with a Koetsu Blue Lace almost permanently affixed (and always sounds stellar), so when the back arm & cart is nearly matching that, I know it’s doing something right!

Guys who leave the sound on while cleaning: has that ever actually saved you from anything? Seems like by the time you're aware of a mishap, it would be too late. Plus a large sudden JOLT of sound thru the speakers is just as likely to damage the cartridge from your reflex reaction. 

I do it in silence. Be VERY aware of your hands, clothing, forces being exerted, etc. Be in the zone. This can mean the difference between enjoying a Koetsu and tolerating a 2M :) 

@prof

I’d be very surprised if your cartridge is worn after only 18 months. That’s hard to do; your Benz uses a very high quality stylus and doesn't track heavy. With a heavily worn stylus, you’d most likely hear a sonic fuzz/grunge/haze type distortion consistently on inner grooves, with still-good sound quality on middle and outer grooves. If the distortion you’re hearing is not tightly correlated to inner grooves then it’s probably something else.

Also I think in most cases, your overhang / alignment will have to be off by a lot before you’ll notice significant distortion from that. If you’re off by a mm or so it should still sound OK. Even a perfectly aligned cartridge (on a 9 - 10" pivoted arm) is going to be somewhat "out of alignment" for most of the record.