detail information

Now that we've taken a look at how well the Plextor drive can handle data protection it's time to see how well it does with protected audio discs. Audio discs are protected more and more and so it's important a drive can read these protections. For the tests we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and CloneCD. In CloneCD we used the default 'Multimedia Audio CD' Profile. For more information on how to handle copy-protected audio discs read this thread on our Audio forum.

Key2Audio version 2:

The first protection we're going to take a look at is Key2Audio developed by Sony DADC. The disc we're using is 'Shakira: Laundry Service' protected with version 2 of the Key2Audio protection. On the front of the CD-cover we can read the text 'will not play on PC/MAC'. For more information on Key2Audio please visit www.key2audio.com.

Shakira: Laundry Service - Key2Audio 2

We first started EAC, inserted the disc and closed the tray. We waited until the CD-contents were displayed. As you can see the disc has 13 audio tracks and one extra protected data track:

After selecting all the audio tracks (we of course left the data track alone) we could extract them at full speed to our hard disk without any problems. Next we tried to copy the disc with CloneCD and the 'Multimedia Audio' Profile:

As you can see from the screenshot the disc is being read at 8x without any problems. We of course also wrote the disc to a CD-ReWriteable disc to see if the tracks were indeed properly extracted. The disc sounded fine on our stereo. If you look closely to the CloneCD log window you will also see that the data track was read. We checked the Profile and found that the option to only read the first session of the disc wasn't enabled. No big deal of course since the back-up played fine but if you want to get a back-up that's unprotected you can select this option. This way the data track will not be read as we will test with out next test disc, protected with Key2Audio version 3:

Key2Audio version 3:

For the Key2Audio version 3 tests we used an audio disc with the title 'Celine Dion: A new day has come'. On the front of the CD-cover we again find the text 'will not play on PC/MAC'.

Celine Dion: A new day has come - Key2Audio 3

We again fired up EAC and waited until the recorder has recognized the disc. As you can see the 'Celine Dion' disc has the same structure as the 'Shakira' disc. There are 17 audio tracks and one protected data track:

After selecting all the audio tracks again (we of course left the data track alone) we could extract them at full speed to our hard disk without any problems. The same result as we got with the 'Shakira' disc. Next we tried to copy the disc with CloneCD and the 'Multimedia Audio' Profile:

As you can see from the screenshot the disc was read without any problems but at a lower speed than the Shakira disc (4x). To test if the disc was extracted properly we wrote the image to a CD-ReWriteable disc again. The disc played just fine again. There were no problems with tracks having the wrong lengths or anything like that. As you can now also see from the CloneCD log window, only the audio tracks were read. The data track was left alone so now we have an unprotected back-up disc which you can read in every drive.

Cactus Data Shield:

Unfortunately we didn't have any Cactus Data Shield (CDS) protected discs available at the time of this review. But we can give you the results when trying to copy a protection based on the CDS protection. For these tests we used a program called CCD-Lock v1.72 RC1a. With this tool you can modify the CloneCD image control file and add illegal TOC (Table Of Contents) entries to protect your discs. In this example we protected an audio disc:

The created (copy-protected) back-up disc showed up as having a total play length of 00m:01s. The disc did play though after a while. Now let's see if the Plextor PX-W4012TU is able to extract the audio tracks from the disc again using EAC. Unfortunately the Plextor fails in recognizing the disc! Now let's try again with CloneCD and the 'Multimedia Audio CD' Profile. CloneCD also fails (or we should say the Plextor drive) to load the disc. It just sits there waiting for the drive:

So that's weird... The Plextor PX-W4012TU has no problems with a commercial audio copy-protection such as Key2Audio, but it fails with a free version!

Conclusion:

The results with the Key2Audio audio protection were very good. The Plextor PX-W4012TU had no problems reading the discs and extracting the audio tracks. When using CloneCD the extraction was a little slow but when we used Exact Audio Copy (EAC), extraction was done at full speed. It was a little surprising to see the Plextor fail with a free audio copy-protection such as CCD-Lock. We waited and waited some more but the disc could not be recognized by any program. The disc did play in our stereo (after some time)...

Next up in our Plextor PX-W4012TU review, writing CD-ReWriteable media...