Looking for a SHN to WAV program for Mac

[Spikejones]

i've been torrenting Phish shows for about a month now, I've used the Transmission program as well as Switch to convert the flac files to MP3's so I can use it with iTunes. The only problem with Switch is I can't convert SHN, I do however know that the only way to do this is to convert the SHN files to WAV files and the to MP3's. I need a program that can do so...

I've tried xACT and was unable to download the software. Are there any programs out there that can be used for this conversion? I'm a Mac user in case you didn't see

Thanks,
_Jones

[jedifunk]

well mac doesnt do WAV first off... 2ndly, xACT is the best option for shn conversions.  i'll see if i have a copy handy... if so i'll up it to sendspace

[jephrey]

Well, I wouldn't say mac doesn't do wav.  I convert from flac>wav>apple lossless in many situations simply because I don't want whatever additional stuff is in the header of an aiff file.  Mac does wav, and it's hard to say that it's tailored for aiff because the ability to play/edit both filetypes has existed for a long time.

But still, xACT is the best.  I also successfully use toast titanium for conversions as well.

[whatapiper]

xAct works just fine for me....

[Mr Minor]

Well, I wouldn't say mac doesn't do wav.  I convert from flac>wav>apple lossless in many situations simply because I don't want whatever additional stuff is in the header of an aiff file.  Mac does wav, and it's hard to say that it's tailored for aiff because the ability to play/edit both filetypes has existed for a long time.

But still, xACT is the best.  I also successfully use toast titanium for conversions as well.

jephrey, what do you mean by additional stuff in the header?  I usually go flac>aiff but is it better to wav instead?  Just curious.  Any explanation would be interesting for me.

Thanks.

edit to add:  xAct is the best for mac.  There is a link through etree FAQ that should work as well. 

[jephrey]

I 'think' that the header or some part of an aiff file has additional information about the file whereas wav is just the audio.  In the early days of collecting I ran into silence showing up on some aiff tracks that didn't show up on wav and I haven't gone back to aiff since.  I doubt that is still an issue - plus I think I only saw it on a few things before making the switch so it could have been something else. 

I just did a search and saw that aiff (audio interchange file format) was more of a standard and the first format for raw audio.  wav (windows audio video) was initially developed by MS and ran through some PCM vs ADPCM issues where the wrong codec in certain players was used and messed with the audio making it sound flat.  I also saw it confirmed that there is extra "stuff" in the header/footer of the AIFF file.  For me, wav is only used on the way to Apple Lossless so I don't really care if I use that or AIFF, I'm just skeptical of the AIFF because of an issue that only may have been due to the filetype 8-10 years ago  :-D

J

[jephrey]

and by raw, I mean 16/44.1 CD raw.  Prior to that I read that Sun had .AU (8bit 11kHz) files.