I've just gotten a copy of Youthanasia (Remixed & Remastered) by Megadeth, which (in its EU form, anyway) comes with Cactus Data Shield 200 v5.01.000.

I've ripped a number of CDS200 discs before with absolutely no trouble at all, but this one is causing a bit of trouble. For the most part everything works fine, but in some tracks there are audible clicks. The clicks appear on my ripped tracks, on the tracks as they are played through Winamp from each of my CD drives and on one of my standalone CD players, but do not appear in two of my other standalones.

I've tried ripping in EAC in both Secure mode (which takes roughly half an hour per track and spits out lots of suspicious positions) and burst mode, but the glitches appear identical in both. I've tried a Lite-On LTR-52327S, a Pioneer DVR-110D and a Lite-On SOHW-812S.

Is there something that will work to rip these tracks without glitches?

Ripping copy protected Audio CDs is mostly a question of using the right drive, and in my experience most drives cannot rip the most difficult CDS200 discs correctly.

Only the following drives (and settings) among those in my signature can do the job properly:

Matshita UJ-840S (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 enabled)
Matshita UJ-840S (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 disabled)
BenQ DW1655 (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 disabled)
LiteOn SHM-165P6S (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 enabled)
LiteOn SHM-165P6S (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 disabled)
LiteOn SHM-165P6S (Exact Audio Copy Fast Mode)
LiteOn SHM-165P6S (Exact Audio Copy Burst Mode)
LiteOn SHW-1635S (Exact Audio Copy Fast Mode)
LiteOn SHW-1635S (Exact Audio Copy Burst Mode)
NEC ND-3500AG (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 enabled)
NEC ND-3500AG (Exact Audio Copy Secure Mode with C2 disabled)
NEC ND-3500AG (Exact Audio Copy Fast Mode)

So try another drive and other rip settings, but unless you have the right drive it might turn out to be impossible.

Was hoping it wouldn't be like that. I've been considering a new drive for a while now and the 165P6S looks like it might be exactly what I need. One question though, do the 18x or 20x drives from LiteOn have the same level of success or is this limited to the 165?

I can't answer that because I don't have a LiteOn drive later than the 6S series.

Some CDS200 discs are much easier to rip than others, so even if somebody were to rip one such CD successfully, there's no guarantee that another CDS200 CD could be successfully ripped on the same drive.

Perhaps someone else has tried one of the difficult CDS200 titles on one of the latest LiteOn drives?

That would be good to know.

Just to update, I went to a friend's place and tried the disc in their Pioneer 112D with much better results. They didn't have EAC so I couldn't get an absolutely perfect rip, but all the problem zones I noted before are either completely fine or contain a barely noticeable pop where there used to be easily audible clicking. Is this as good as I'm going to get or would EAC and/or a different drive give me completely flawless results?

With the right drive you should be able to get a flawless result.