you should try sometime to push forward or rewind at playback (when AMS (auto music search) function is enabled), so it will skip a track and play another one from the very beginning, you didn't show this cool feature, maybe you aren't even aware of that, try it..but this feature most plausibly will wear the head out quicker, some prefer not to use this function even if the have one..but it's so cool, i remember the early 90ties, when my friend had some cool JVC tape deck with such function.