see here:

http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...ead.php?t=6262


i think FLAC is a fine format. but honestly, i've never gotten errors as bountiful with SHN/MKW (and never any error encoding/decoding with WavPack) as i have with FLAC. for whatever reason, i seem to get errors A LOT more frequently with FLACs than with any program... and mind you, it isn't a huge percentage of the time. but then again, i never have had any encoding/decoding errors with WavPack (in .WV or .EXE formats), and only very few errors with MKW - all of which were attributable to the file(s) sent not passing the MD5 checksum for the original sender either.

again, FLAC is a fine format and all. but i haven't had the same issues with the other compression formats i use. and, i could not care any less about any hardware players (portable or otherwise) that "can play FLAC files" because that's not a function i'd use. (FLAC files comprise the smallest amount of stored lossless audio data that i have in my collection. and i'm not about to convert the other shows to FLAC format.) as i've done since i started acquiring lossless Shorten files - if i want to listen on my computer, i can fire up WinAmp; if i want to listen in my stereo system or car, i simply convert and burn the files to CDR/DVDR. when i transfer a master or DAT clone to my hard drive, i compress it as an SFX .EXE file, so on any Windows platform computer, i know i can decompress the show and burn an audio copy and i don't have to have any special software installed on said computer.