what are some of the best tools to use to protect my audio cd's ?
thanks

Probably CloneCD.
You can manipulate the CCD file to change the reported Lead-Out
position in the TOC.
Let me refer you to this (old) thread:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?threadid=44263

Another way to 'make it more difficult' for PC-drives to re-read such a disc, would be to record the audio as MODE1/2352 with CDRWIN.

Change the string 'AUDIO' into 'MODE1/2352' in your cuesheet.
Then you have to select the 'RAW mode' on writing.
But take care! The resulting 'Audio'-CD will play fine in (any) CD-Player, but at the end of the disc, there will be a very short 'white noise' click (at least in my tests/with my used writer).
I don't know, how to get around this (yet).

Keep in mind, that there is no perfect copy protection.
There are some drives, which are able to read *every* audio copy protection used until now.
According to the German magazine "C't" 07/03 p. 143 (Praxis: CD-Abspielsperren überwinden) this are the following drives:

Yahama CRW-F1, testet firmware 1.0c
Archos Dex DVD-RW 2 (external version of LG GMA-4020B), tested firmware A105

i remeberd this link

http://www.burnarchive.de/CCD-Lock/

never used it..so i can't tell you anything about it


even discussed on cdfreaks
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/2944

@tuff
Here I explain it a bit more detailed as requested:

To change the Track Mode in your cuesheet, simply open it with
any text editor of your choice.
By example your cue file could look like this:

FILE test.bin BINARY
TRACK 01 AUDIO
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 05:00:00

Just exchange the string(s) "AUDIO" into "MODE1/2352" or "MODE2/2352".
The Track Mode you choose shouldn't really matter because the
resulting CD will violate the CD standard anyway

Then you get this:

FILE test.bin BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00

But keep in mind that the file length - in this case "test.bin" has
to be a multiple of 2352, otherwise it will be rejected by CDRWIN.
If you've ripped the audio from a CD, then this will be the case,
anyway.
Again: You'll get a noisy 'click' at the end of your CD when re-reading it, which doesn't sound very nice. Be careful.

To record the image with Cdrwin, load your Cuesheet and select 'RAW' before writing. If your writer doesn't support it, then you're out of luck


Changing the lead-out length in CloneCD's control file (.ccd) is
considerable less 'dangerous' than the first action.
Open the ccd file like you did with the cue and search for the
[Entry 2] section.

It should look like this:

[Entry 2]
Session=1
Point=0xa2
ADR=0x01
Control=0x04
TrackNo=0
AMin=0
ASec=0
AFrame=0
ALBA=-150
Zero=0
PMin=46
PSec=51
PFrame=10
PLBA=210685

Now change 'PMin', 'PSec' and 'PFrame'.
It is up to you, what to enter here.
If I remember right, the first protected Audio-CD (HIM - Razorblade Romance)
used a specified lead-out length of only 30 seconds.
If you want to use that length, you have to change the ccd to:

PMin=0
PSec=30
PFrame=0


What's to be expected when re-reading?

In the first case, most drives shouldn't be able to read the CD, at all (expect Stand-Alone Players, of course and Plextor drives).
In the 2nd, most drives will read just 30 seconds (or whatever your entry was) and then stop (again except Plextor drives, hehe).

Hope that helps. Just experiement a little bit.
Maybe you wanna try out the Tool, damiandimitri already mentioned ...

As you can see, quite unperfect and experimental, but an idea.

thanks a million i'm gonna try it right away, i'll keep you posted .....