Yo guys, which drive does the best job of reading audio CDs protected by the various methods? Assuming you don't let any of them install a trojan on your machine.

I have a Litey LTD163 DVD drive and it works great with unprotected CDs, but what should I get to handle the protected stuff?

Thanks.

CD-RWs:

Plextor Premium (non plus ultra for CD copy protections of any kind)

LiteOn LTR-52327S (cheap and great alternative)

Most DVD-ROM readers are not that good when it comes to audio CD protections, the only good ones at it:

DVD-ROMs

LiteOn 166S

Aopen 1648/AAP

Both generally great drives as well. But the CD-RWs mentioned first are the better choice when defeating audio protections is the main concern (I personally recommend the Premium (have it myself), but it is not cheap).

What program are u going to use?

Talking to me? Exact Audio Copy (EAC) (freeware). The best audio ripping tool there is, nothing else comes even close, including all commercial products.

Edit: Plextools is quite useful for ripping protected audio discs as well.

Does everyone use that program? I have been a prod EAC user for a long while now and I have only mety about 20 people that don't use EAC.

EAC is the quasi-standard amongst audiophiles. Especially the secure ripping mode, the good support / integration of all kinds of audio compression formats, and all the geeky extra options (e.g. offsets) make it quite unique. And the best thing about it: It's free.

I usually use EAC. However, I'll use whatever is necessary to get the job done. Which ripping program is best for protected CDs?

EAC is excellent. Also PlexTools Pro is great for audio protected CDs (and as a ripper in general), but of course you need a plextor drive .

ET

Out of all the drives I tested Plextors work the best, Sony lasers work the worst and Yamaha falls somewhere in between them.

The Yamaha CRW-F1 is supposed to be very good at audio protections. You might have trouble finding this drive considering its not in production anymore. I would test out audio protections with it if I had protected audio cds, but I can't find any here in the US.

I never tested the Y F1 but I did also here it was good.

I have a few CDS200 USA cds I grabbed off Amazon (the sony lasers can't rip track01 and but my plex can):

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...music&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...145721-5197613

the yamaha crw-f1
is not in shop anymore oly on inetnet maby ebay
i have the yamaha crw-f1 it a very good burner for audio cd protections
and games protections

the time that i bay the burner yamaha crw-f1
it was 2 jears ago i bay it in a copmuter shop.
but a weak later it wasent anymore becuase it now a illegal
burner, becuase it bur a lot of audio cd protections.
this shop was in the netherlands europa.
sorry for my bat english so if you see i come from the netherlands.

try feurio . its a very good program to defeat some protections.

I couldn't get game backups to work very well in this drive, the ones made in the liteon ran of course, but it wouldn't defeat them. Maybe because I think I only tested with firmwares 1.0d-f I never got around to 1.0g testing.