Burn technology burning me up

[TomT]

Be aware with old transcriptions that you need a needle to match--especially 78's.  Used to be available for the Shure phono cartridges, but that was back last century.

[johnbasalla]

Got you covered Mr. T.  Thanks anyway.  I'm using standard groove needles, and on the units so equipped, I'm using the LP weight, which is much lighter then the 78 weight.  It doesn't matter as much on the poly vinyl discs, but the "soft recordings", pressed on more fragile discs get "eaten" by the the arm handle/needle if you use the heavier weight.  All spin at 33 rpm.  There are a number of discs that are glass based, and therefore extremely fragile ... as they wanted to use the regular disc making material for the war effort.  When in good shape (a relative rarity), they actually sound pretty good. 
I'm playing these on large Newcomb record players primarily sold to schools.  They double as both a record player and loud microphone sound system.  The ones that don't have the arm handle weight adjustment are weighted more like the lighter "LP" weight. 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Those of us who are perfectionists about some aspect of this project are doing a lot of talking.  Sounds like you are taking ACTION....  which beats TALK any day of the week.  Sounds like a fun project.

[chriscollins]

I did this with a lot of rare 12" remixes I had years ago.  I put them all on my computer (cleaned them and played them wet).  I still have these untouched wav's... For my CD copies, I went back and did some restoration and low level remastering.  Always keep your original .wav... You never know when you will want to reprocess the original someday with a much better signal processor/plugin.