[U2Lynne]

Originally Posted by Starlifter

I'd like to know why something like this: SHN > WAV > FLAC is allowed here. I realize it's no loss of quality but why are people allowed to upload such things when the original is what currently circulates.

Why put yet another form of compression into the pool?

Flac is smaller in size and is actually the preferred type of lossless file type for many people. But, this is one of the reasons why we ask for shntool md5s (st5) to be provided with shn/ape files. An st5 fingerprint will be the same as a flac fingerprint. So, if you had a show in shn and you had the st5 for it, if it was converted to flac you would easily be able to see right away if it's the same show just by comparing the fingerprints.

edit: I wanted to add.... shn > wav > flac > wav > shn etc will always produce the same wav file throughout the convertion (as long as we aren't talking about burning the wav to CDR and then extracting the wav from the CDR at all in there). They are all *lossless* files. st5 and ffp will simply help you tell right away that they are from the same source file.

And, speaking as a Mac user, I prefer flac to use in my 'player', cog. cog doesn't play shn files very well and macAmp is no longer supported and is very glitchy at times. And, I know of no Mac player that allows you to play shn seek tables (they barf on them). So, for me, I would take flac over shn anyday.