Does my stylus look bent?
Bought a new needle for my Sumiko Olympia cart about a month ago. So of course, I get high for the first time in a long while and make the mistake of trying to manually life the needle (something I don't normally do), raise it too high and then clumsily drop it. About two weeks ago. You could see the divet that the harsh drop caused in the runout of the record.
Since then, I've been getting a bit more noise from my records than usual and have had two brand new records with scratches upon first playthrough that I chalked up to modern QC issues. But I'm getting paranoid due to PTSD due to the fact that a cantilever on a previous Olympia got bent from a miscalculation on a needle drop that caused it to slide of the side of the spinning platter of my Technics 1200. They just seem to be a bit on the fragile side.
Playback sounds great other than more "static" than usual. No distortion or silibace. Second photo is under a magnifying glass.