There hasn't been a single protected CD yet that I haven't been able to rip with EAC secure and my PX40TSi ... it seems that CDS has established as some kind of standard (at least in my country) which can be ripped with ease, using proper hardware and EAC ...

Just take a look at this new CDS200.04 Pop Sampler (Bravo Hits 40 CD01, very popular in Germany) Extraction Logfile:

EAC extraction logfile from 5. March 2003, 20:37 for CD
Various Artists / Bravo Hits 40 Disc 01

Used drive : PLEXTOR CD-ROM PX-40TS Adapter: 2 ID: 6
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Read offset correction : 676
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename D:\Bravo Hits 40 Disc 01 - DAE.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
CRC A8B7BB5D
Copy OK

No errors occured

End of status report

A 100% rip @ 1,8 x ... just for the fun of it, I did a wav comparison to a digital recording of the same CD ... with no noticeable differences but 130 single samples (out of 192714826) that were interpolated in a different way by either the drive or the standalone player ...

Sounds good, doesn't it ?

BTW:

Plextools gave more than 8000 incorrectable CU errors over the disc using my PXW2410A with the "first session only" option ... plextools have been clearly beaten by EAC on this one ...

There was another CD (Toto - Through The Looking Glass; CDS200.04 as well) that could be ripped with 100% reported accuracy ... see the logfile

EAC extraction logfile from 11. March 2003, 21:03 for CD
Toto / Through The Looking Glass

Used drive : PLEXTOR CD-ROM PX-40TS Adapter: 2 ID: 6
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, NO disable cache
Read offset correction : 676
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes

Used output format : Internal WAV Routines
44.100 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000


Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename D:\Toto - Through The Looking Glass.wav

Peak level 99.8 %
Range quality 100.0 %
CRC 14645351
Copy OK

No errors occured

End of status report

Greetz

JL

Seems like Win32 drivers for that drive do interpolation
and PlexTools bypass it...

so not even plextools first session only is able to defeat ANY CP??? then what will do on older burners like my plex 24x one???

I wouldn't see it like this. First it's the drive chipset that interpolates or not. This said, Plextool might be able to disable it, though I don't see why it would do it.
Then, it's likely that the CD has really 8000 C2 errors recorded in it. EAC being set without C2, it can't detect them, since the errors are introduced on purpose with erroneous EFM, C1 or C2 codes, that are perfectly recorded on the CD, thus perfectly readable the same way each time. So EAC can't detect them reading twice, since the result is always the same.
If EAC was set with C2 on, it would also detect about 8000 errors, but would incorrectly report to have corrected them all (99 % quality - No errors occured).
Plextools working with "best of N reads according to C2" instead of "majority of 16 reads whatever C2" is perfectly aware not to have corrected them, while EAC is fooled.

The errors should not be audible, since they are chosen so that interpolation hides them perfectly.

If your drive interpolates linearly over 3 samples, like the ones I tested, and the standalone player over 10 samples, then the 130 differences can be 65 errors running through 2 consecutives samples, for example, that would be differently interpolated by the two readers (linearly by the standalone, and hold one + linear interpolation by the CD ROM drive), leading to 130 different samples, while the rest of them being isolated samples, they are interpolated linearly by the two machines.

Have you compared the EAC extraction (no errors) with the Plextool one (8000 errors) ? They should be the same.

Yes, I did do a wav substraction ... Plextools showed muted samples repeatedly over different areas of about 3000 Samples each ... I took some screenshots but I am temporarily unanble to upload them here ... I will do so later on.

The comparison between EAC and digital recording from my Sony SCD770QS showed only single samples being different/interpolated ...

OK, take a look at this picture ...

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/11.jpg

it shows a rip with Plextools (PX-W2410A since PX-40TSi didn't work with the "First Session Only" parameter) in the upper half and the same rip carried out by EAC Secure & PX40TSi (lower half).

Plextools have been unable to correct any of the CU errors encountered in earlier tests so I had to set the error correction mode back to "Report Only" and ripped with 4x where the PXW2410A is supposed to show the best error correction behaviour (see Andre Wiethoff's DAE Quality comparison for that drive).

As you can see, there is a highlighted range with muted samples where the PX40TSi just read the appropriate data ...

This image shows the wav comparison between EAC & Plextools over the whole range:

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/04.jpg

There are several areas (the one from the upper picture is highlighted) with different samples that go up to 0 dB ...

Next Image: wav substraction between EAC Secure & S/P DIF recording (Terratec EWX 24/96) from Sony SCD 770 QS

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/12.jpg

Several areas with small peak differences can be spotted ... let's zoom in closer

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/15.jpg

As you can see, there are single different sample values ... let us take a look at both waves at that timecode

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/17.jpg

No real noticeable differences there ... let's take a look at the overlay with changed colors (S/P DIF recording is blue)

http://members.futureprojects.info/jeanluc...ucpicard/20.jpg

As you can see, there are only single samples that were different ... I counted them and it turned out that there was an amount of 130 samples per channel ... absolutely inaudible from my point of view. I cannot state whether the wrong samples came from PX40TSi or Sony SCD770QS although it looks like linear interpolation carried out by the Plex drive ...

What I want to point out is that Plextools is not the most accurate method for creating backup copies of CDS200 protected discs ... the CU errors reported cannot be corrected, regardless of read retries or error correction mode used (that's the intention of CDS200) and are being muted in a wide range (by the highly acclaimed PXW2410A), whereas the PX40TSi (in combination with EAC secure) allows to create backup copies that will sound as good (or bad, in that case ...) like the original CD that is being played back via S/P DIF ...

Exactly the same happened to me too (Grönemeyer - Mensch, CDS 200 protected). Details in Excessive Copy Protection?, Mp3 related thread.

-edit: JeanLuc, you should replace those pictures by links otherwise I bet someone else will do it. - and/or use .png - it'll be much smaller than jpeg.