I remember using an earlier version of Roxio to copy CD's for listening to in the car. They didn't sound the same as the original, so I played the copy/orginal on some high-end equipment and the difference was quite apparent. I found Roxio was converting the CD's to wave files before writing them back to CD.

So I switched to Nero, which produces an exact bit-for-bit copy, with no sound degration or distortion - and have been very happy since.

That was until last week, when some CD's I ordered from YesAsia (Japan) arrived. They have a copy-protection mechanism on them (Cactus-200) which basically tries to trick your PC into thinking it's not an audio CD. Very nasty, ineffective, and subsequently dropped - apparently, a lot of audio CD players couldn't read the disks. The CD player in my car being just one example.

Not a problem, I thought - just copy the audio tracks off it with Nero. Not so, Nero either wants to copy everything or nothing.

Then I found dBpowerAMP CD Writer, which offered to copy .cda files (as found on audio CD's). I thought CD->HDD->CD, and keeping the file in its native format will result in a perfect copy. However, I was wrong. The copied music sounds noticeably inferior.

So, I looked at the temporary files it created - and they're wave files :-(

Which kind of explains the crap quality. :vmad:

Am I missing something here? Is there some hidden setting in the program to create a bit-for-bit identical copy of the music?!?!