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July 20, 2005

Anti-Skip protection on Mp3 Players

There have been some questions on anti-skip protection on mp3 players due to the fact that some of them publish on the box in its feature list.

You got to see what the storage of each player is to determine if it needs it or not:

- Flash mp3 players have no moving parts at all, does not need nor have anti-skip protection. These will NEVER skip.

- Hard Drive mp3 players like iPods and Creative Zen CAN skip, because you move the heads too much they cannot read the disk, but as the memory buffer is huge, you would have to shake VERY vigoursly for them for about 10 minutes for the buffer to empty. Only in very extreme situations could this happen (does not count jogging). They mention anti-skip as a 'feature', but it's really not that relevant. Also, in mini-drive players (like iPod-mini) it happens the same, but it would be almost impossible to make them skip.

- CD/MP3 players CAN skip, and DO need anti-skip protection... as these also have a good memory buffer, it would be rare to hear them skip, although a very hard jogging could make them. It would be advisable to get another type of player.

Generally, you should not worry about this, most mp3 player play perfectly.

Posted by mp3fan at July 20, 2005 12:34 PM