Hi,

i'm glad to be the first poster in this new audio forum, and hope this one will be frequently visited.

To begin with, is there a place somewhere on the net which lists the cd-rom, dvd-rom, dvd-rw, or combos that bypass the audio protections such as CDS or K2A ?

i personaly have as a burner a Yamaha 2100E ( IDE 16/10/40 ), and as a DVD-ROM a Samsung SD-612, RPC1 patched.

Ultraplex 40X TSi SCSI and Mitsumi FX5401W1A can both read C.D.S.200 and K2A....

Wow!!!

Thanx for the fast reply bro.
Unfortuneately, i m not as fast as others : my post was not the first one.

By the way, an "addon" to the cloneCD compatible writers, like one more column precising the audio protection support would be great.

If Olli is reading this

I think for audio protection, the difficulty lies mainly in the reader, not the writer. If your reader can create an image file, then just about any decent writer should be able to write the resulting image onto a disk. The CDS and K2A protections are designed to confuse the CDRom/CDRW/DVD readers in computers.

From what I've heard, few readers can deal with these protections. I hear that some of the Plextor drives might be able to read through the protection. I have also heard that the LiteOn 32x burner with the latest firmware may be able to read through the protection. Similarly, I have read that an AOpen drive could read through the protection. Bottom line is most computer drives cannot read through CDS and K2A protections. So, pick your drives carefully!

I would be happy to test some of these drives, I have a Plexi 40x SCSI reader on order, and I already have the Litey 32x burner. But I have no CDS or K2A protected original CDs. So far, the music I listen to has not been protected (yet).

A newbie to this forum but I thought I'd let you all know that I have a Creative 12x DVD and Plextor 241040 CD-RW and both not only recognised, played and coped very well with recognition of the K2A disc I eventually copied but played every time I inserted it into one of those drives.

According to the label on the CD itself and also the inlay this CD would NOT play on a PC or Mac... It was the Celine Dion newbie CD. I don't personally like her but folk wanted me to test this out and hey presto - done... no bother whatsoever.

I used Clony XXL and CloneCD (latest for both) and all was a piece of cake!!!!!!!! So where these disks confuse, crash and play havoc with the writer's firmware I don't know.

I have little bother with protection on anything. I also have a 52x LG CD-ROM drive just in case the others won't read certain disks and that has never failed me yet.

Thanx you all for your answers folks.

If I understand correctly how these protections work, they rely heavily on multisession, which audio readers ignore altogether... So, I guess very old readers might work nicely... I remember my boss had an old creative cd reader with NO multisession support, quite annoying for data CDs, but this one might have been useful on protected audio... Unfortunately, I don't have access to it anymore, and I'm not going to buy anything from Celine Dion either ;-P

I have an old DVD reader from pioneer (DVD-303F SCSI) and i'm not able to read key2audio cds. The DVD does not reject the cd. So I tried to make a backup copy with clonecd. I have to insert the audio cd after pressing the Next button during the reading, but then clone was able to detect the cd in the drive. After reading I tried to burn the image and with version 3 of clonecd I became a playable cd with a strange total time of about 95 minutes (it should be about 70). With version 4 this was fixed but the cd was unplayable, only the tracks numbers were right.

I solved the problem using ISObuster. When i use this proggie I always have an error but I chose to ignore. There are 2 sessions detected by the proggie (I heard that key2audio uses 3 sessions, not 2) and in the first session there is the music. Direct extraction is possible and my "unsupported" reader now works.

Before using ISObuster I used goldenhawk cdrwin. key2audio cds were read by sectors but the result was 1 audio track. I had to use an editor to separate the tracks.

You may have a chance with ISObuster or with cdrwin. Try it.

I can only confirm that the Plextor PX-40ts, Plextor PX-W4220T can do the job! (No luck for my LiteOn ltd163 or LiteOn ltr-40125s)

Exact Audio Copy has an option 'manually detect TOC' which might work with your reader, in this case the illegal TOC is ignored and the cd is examined in search for audio-tracks.

the LG 52x cdrom player and
Delta 52x

read k2a with no problems
I suspect all the really cheap cdrom players will read
these protected CDs

I just use cdfs.vxd and drag the .wav files off the audio cds
then create a cd without protection.

After searching cd freaks as much as possible I've come up with this. Only these can read audio protections......

40x, 32x ultraplex
Plextor cd/rw drives
Toshiba 16x dvd
And apparently cheap cd-roms?

The question is.... Can i hear some testimonials on these cheap cd-roms (52x, 56x) that I've heard can bypass the protections. I for sure do not have the money for a plex, but i do have a 40125S and I want a nice rom to go with this. I'm probably going to end up getting the Toshiba dvd, but a cheap cd-rom will work. AS LONG as they can pass these audio protections. So can hear some people tell me whether these cd-roms can or can not pass the protections.

Thanks

If your looking for a cheap rom and can find one go for a samsung sc-148.I got one and it's a great little rom,it rips audio cd's and plays all my backed up games now worries.

The only problem is there a bit old and it might be hard to find one.

my creative 12x dvd, sony 6x dvd, toshiba 40x cdrom
and liteon 24x burner will not read any k2a AT ALL
the dvd players both think it is a blank cdrw the liteon
just spins and spits it out, and th toshiba spins and
says disc error.......

thank god for cheap 52x cdrom players...............

(funny how someone elses creative will read k2a, i wonder
if i believe them?????????)

I also doubt the toshiba dvd will read k2a!

What brand 52x?

Woah,

I have a cheapie Delta 52x drive in a box gathering dust. I use it as an emergency spare. I think it does DAE at only 8x. BUT... are you saying the thing will read CDS or K2A?? If so, that thing will be pressed into service!

Has anyone run one of these things through the NERO CD speed test to see if it has secure stream and can read the C2 errors, CD text and the subchannel data, or if it will read into the leadin and leadout?

Whassup with this thing?

Is the cdfs.vxd mentioned by sarahjh69 compatable with Windows ME?

@ivatt

Yes, cdfs.vxd SHOULD be compatible with WindowsME, since it has the same architecture as Win9x.

Thanks for the info. Have now installed and it seems ok. Just a couple of questions, on one of the sites I visited where it had info it said to check the properties for the .WAV file and if it gave the Preview tab the drive would work with the driver.

I've checked one CD and it shows the General and Summary tabs. Is the summary tab the same as Preview?

Where there are three differnet sampling rates for the .WAV file is one better than the other to do a write with?

Thanks

@ivatt

I'm not sure, if I have understood your question(s) right,

but, if you can copy the displayed wave files, the driver should work properly.
And the files contained in the folder Stereo\16Bit\44100Hz are equivalent to the data on the CD except the wave header added by CDFX.VXD and the offset of the reader, of course. All other frequencies/bit-depths are calculated by the driver. Actually the additional rates are unnecessary. Who wants the bad quality waves? And for downsampling there are tools, which perform much better, like CoolEdit for example.
The tab "preview" is not always present (e.g. my system). It depends on the registry-entries in the AVI section, as far a I know.

I have no experience with this cdfs.vxd because I use Win2000... but I think there is nothing special about this driver... if you can't read the protected audio cd with CloneCD/EAC/Feurio/etc. I guess cdfs.vxd won't help you either!

There is an audio driver from Plextor like CDFS.VXD called AUDIOFS.VXD. I don't know if it works with NON Plex-drives but it should work under Win2000.

Does anyone know if there is a modified cdfs.sys for W2K, similar to the cdfs.vxd mod for W98 etc?

there is no such file for
win 2000, win NT or win XP