I have had the same experience with lacquers. Play them wet, then see if 
there is not a glob of your record clinging to your stylus. The record 
will never play properly again unless you wet it, and thus remove more 
of the lacquer. So you lose record and stylus.

I have often wondered if there is some liquid that can be used for 
playing a lacquer or shellac 78 to reduce surface noise without damage 
to either record or stylus.

IIRC, Seth once said at a conference presentation that he had applied 
pinch roller cleaner to a problem transcription and the results he 
demonstrated proved his point. However, that was to a problem point on 
the record, so I don't know if it was intended to reduce surface noise 
as much as clean that problem area.

joe salerno

On 12/18/2013 3:05 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> You cannot play shellac records wet, or even damp.  Shellac discs will
> eventually dissolve in water, and by playing them wet you are allowing
> the stylus to gouge out some nice soft shellac.  Once played wet a
> shellac record will never play properly dry again.
>
> Mike Biel  [log in to unmask]