Stylus not tracking and sounds terrible


I haven't used my TT in about 6 months due to a remodeling project. The TT was not moved, just not used. Yesterday I fired it up, tried to play some new vinyl, and ran into a problem.

The sound is terrible, shrill and scratchy sounding with no bass. The stylus randomly skates and hops. I tried playing a couple of records I know sound great but the problem remained.

The VTF, VTA, and azimuth are set correctly. I swapped out cables to and from the TT to the phono amp but still have the problem. I tried balanced and single ended cables to my pre from the phono pre.

I tried increasing VTF, playing with the VTA, disconnecting my subs, nothing changed.

The TT is a VPI Aries 1, Benz-Micro LO cartridge, Pass Aleph Ono pre. I've owned all of them since new or almost new so it all has some years on it but it sounded great before. Could the cartridge go bad in 6 months by just sitting there unused?

I had a similar problem a while ago and determined it was vibration/resonance from my room. I have the Aries sitting on a Ginko cloud platform now and it is pretty well isolated.

Everything sounded great the last time I played music on it. The only thing that changed was the location of the phono pre. It used to sit next to the TT but now my ARC amp is in that place. Could the tube amp be doing something here? The TT is right next to it on the same shelf.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
nolacap
What about your wall power? Did the renovation involve electrical work?

Sounds farfetched if the problem seems to be tracking error, but the likely suspects have been checked.
I had the same type of thing happen with an Ortofon MC3. The cantilever was always a little bit skewed to one side but it played perfectly for years on my second rig. Then I noticed the skew angle increased a tiny bit more and by the next day it was worse with tracking issues, channel imbalance, sibilance and reduced bass. If you are immeasurably careful with a needle-nosed pliers, you might be able to bend it back into position.
EDIT - I see updated posts above.
I'll be moving the amp. I moved it next to the TT temporarily while waiting for some longer interconnects. What could the amp be doing to the cartridge to move the cantilever though?

There was electrical work done during the renovation. Power was turned on and off etc. but nothing in the system was unplugged.