Ever Damage A Stylus Using Cleaning Brush?

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!

I will agree with others that it is unlikely that you did damage.  The difference you are hearing is probably more a product of anxiety over your actions.  I would make the following recommendation:  At all times, when not actually playing a record, make sure the cuing lever is in the up position.  If you accidently bump the arm, the needle will not contact anything if the arm is cued up.  This is really the simplest thing to do--when play is over, cue up and leave the lever in that position even when you return the arm to the rest.  Do not actually lock the arm in the rest--there is no need to do this because the arm is cued up.  If the arm or stylus is accidentally bumped, it is better that the arm and cartridge are free to move from the force applied, and there is no problem with that movement leading to the stylus hitting anything if the arm is cued up.  Only cue down in order to play.  When cleaning the stylus, the cued up position, without the arm being locked down to the arm rest prevents damage from excess force applied to the stylus and cantilever--the arm would move from that force instead of excessively stressing the cantilever.

Thanks larryi, I do indeed always keep my turntable arm unlocked for those reasons.

mulveling

That's what I figured.

As to the cleaning lady....

When I made my big turntable upgrade it was from my old micro seiki (donated by my father in law) to an expensive (second hand) Transrotor Fat Bob S, Acoustic Solid arm, and the Benz Micro Ebony L cartridge.  (The cartridge was essentially new, worth thousands).

I spent a month or so specially re-constructing my equipment rack to handle the turntable, including an elaborate isolation shelf.  The turntable sitting in it's box while doing so.  Finally after all that effort I was able to play a bit of a record, just before getting out the door for a family vacation.  It sounded great and I couldn't wait to get back and play my new expensive toy!

Well, we got back, I went to cue up a record and...WTF?  Somehow the whole cartridge was twisted almost all the way sideways!  I was utterly horrified and baffled.  How?

Then I remembered:  Maybe the cleaning lady decided to come while we were gone.  I phoned her.  Sher enough when I politely inquired she said "Oh yes, I came and did your house.  There was that big new shiny thing.  I was cleaning around it and heard a big bang noise.  Then I noticed the long straight thing was hanging down (arm).  So I put it back up.  I hope it's ok?"

Yeah...her cloth had snagged the cartridge.  Luckily it wasn't by the needle.  Ultimately I was able to get it back working again (though I think she did something permanent to the arm).

It's amazing how many cleaning women horror stories there are regarding turntables.  Makes an electric fence seem like a plausible investment :-)

@mulveling

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.

That’s the first thing I thought of.

It’s far from easy to damage a stylus with any proprietary brush.

As an aside, do people still prefer to use a brush?

I can still recall the days when the likes of Linn would recommend using a matchbox to clean the stylus!

I did wonder if anyone out there tried cleaning their Troika/Karma or other high end carts in such a manner?

Luckily I had one of those vibrating Audio Technica devices. I wish I’d kept hold of it when I sold off the LP12. Especially after seeing the prices they seem to fetch nowadays.

Also, wasn’t there a more recent craze for using magic sponge/eraser as a means of cleaning styli?

Is there even a consensus as to which method is best?

I leave my tonearm locked with the cuing lever up when I’ve finished listening for the day. There are enough earthquakes in my neck of the woods to keep me sufficiently paranoid.

A back-to-front brushing has never hurt my stylus or cantilever in my sixty-very odd years of spinning discs, no matter how stiff the stylus brush might be. It’s fun, too, to hear the "rriiiipp!" through the speakers as I do this. Just don’t have the volume set too high. Every couple days or so, I wet the stylus with stylus cleaner and sit it down for a few seconds on my "Professional" brand buzz-o-rama battery-powered stylus cleaner. If I feel the need to give my stylus an extra pat on the head I’ll gently stroke it with an artists’ brush. In all my years, I’ve only accidentally ripped the needle/cantelever off a cartridge once or twice.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve mentioned my various snafus before on this website. I’ve had a couple good scares when I’ve clumsily cued the cartridge down at a spot where it falls off the edge of the spinning record. I’m even less happy when I do this on a spinning 7" 45. Will it happily make it into the lead-in groove or will it scoot off onto my SOTA’s hard rubber turntable mat? Then there are the records where the lead-out groove is close enough to the label for the cartridge to scrape/bang against my LP hold-down clamp.