Sorry I couldn't find older post about this, though I think here is lot of info about transcribing... anyway
I wanted to compare transcribing between different ways.
With saxophone I feel it is much slower than with the piano. Solos are better in finger memory when I transcribe solos. But I don't usually bother to write to note paper, and also analysis suffers.
With piano it is easy and fast to write down solos, but trying to play it with sax after that it seems like I'm just learning another tune from notes.
I don't have experience about transcribing in my head so I can't comment that.
I hope you share your thoughts!