I've used five different players (three different Panasonic, one Toshiba, and one Yamaha) with the 950 and never experienced the signal drop-out you've been experiencing with the old Sony. The oldest Panasonic had a fairly slow layer change, too. I'll leave it to others to comment specifically on the Denons (although the two in question are very new to market), but I would expect both to maintain signal lock through the layer change.