I suspect that the problem in the case of your old player was due to the player's behavior during layer change - in my experience, it is extremely rare for a player to interrupt the digital audio signal at layer change, since the format of the signal should always be maintained across the change. It would have been this handling of the audio signal during the layer change rather than the duration of the change that would cause the 950 to mute and re-acquire. I'd be curious to hear if a new player did the same thing.