I am looking for a CD-ROM drive to use as my primary reader, I already have an LDW-811s to use as a burner.

I'm interested in a drive that does well against audio protections mainly, as the LITE-ON is reasonable at most protections but occasionaly falls over on some of my audio discs.

Any help will be appreciated

It depends how much you would pay for the drive

A good and cheap drive is the LiteOn LTR-52327S, expensive but i think it's a good one the Plextor PlexWriter Premium.

Reason for buying Plex. I have always made great experiences with CD Drives of Plextor and therefore i recommened this drive.

I'm not bothered about the price, I was actually considering the plex premium but wanted some insight from more experienced people than me.

If you want a reader that does well against audio protections, then I'd recommend a Plextor. Some of the newer LiteOn burners do a good job as well. I use a LiteOn DVD drive as a reader, but then again most of the stuff I buy to "backup" is not protected. I listen to blues, not the modern nu-metal, rap or pop stuff.

The LiteOn DVD drive works great on unprotected disks.

If it's not a question of money and time and work, get yourself a scsi card and connect a Ultraplex TS40i to it. But you will have little chance of getting one -- try www.pc-king.de.

I hate to say this but I wouldn’t recommend the Ultraplex 40-Tsi. It has some trouble with the newer versions of CDS 200. It’ll still do the job but not in an elegant/easy way. You can read about it here.

Somehow I feel it’s kind of ‘overkill’, buying the Premium drive just to rip copy protected cd’s, but it’s one of the best audio rippers.

Please note that when it comes to scratched cd’s , the Ultraplex 40-Tsi sometimes outperform the premium drive

Ack.