to get artifacts from CD with large negative offset
one would need to cancel it with drive having larger positive offset
(when doing manual reading, offset manifests in 1st sector after data track
so if combined offset is negative, it's obscured with data track -
data track is written on top of it, making detection impossible)
e.g. it would require at least +299 drive for your CD

detection of larger positive offsets generally wasn't a problem
but you'd need drive capable of overreading to fully extract data from such CD afterwards

while there can be some uncertainty, when doing offset calculations manually with IsoBuster
d8 returns offset exactly as drive sees it, i.e. as it is by definition

so, since Plextor Premium does have d8 command
and can overread into both: Lead-Out and 1st pregap
fortunately all of this shouldn't influence outcome for you
though even with Plextor there still can be difficulties with gaps of some Sega CDs
but such occurrences should be seldom

it's cool you want to be certain about everything
often people would rush in head-on and make mistakes

According to the dumping guide "To be able to detect all offsets, most dumpers in our project bought a cheap CDRW drive with a large read offset, such as the Sony CRX-100E or 120E."

So... when I run into a disc with a big factory offset like I am with Mad Dog McCree for Sega CD which has a factory offset of, by my calculations, -298 or theoretically run into something way off that has a factory write offset of +1000 or more does that mean I'm going to have trouble getting a perfect rip if the data backs up into the lead in or runs all the way up to the lead out area?

Should offset detection and ripping with a Plextor Plexwriter Premium be of any concern to me if I'm using the px_d8 utility to detect combined offsets? Has it been proven to be pretty reliable?