I wanted to clarify a few points and basically add to the information provided by Patrick (thanks, Patrick!) [ Shn is used mainly for bootleg recordings (I'm not sure why) and [ if you look on the a.b.s.shn newsgroup, most of the material are [ bootlegs. It depends upon your definition of bootleg. Some people only use the term "bootleg" for illegal live recordings or even just illegal copies of official studio recordings. A more loose definition of "bootleg" is any independent recording that is not official. The etree.org site does not condone bootlegs. Their community of tapers record from bands who allow fans to do so, and at venues who allow this. I would not call this a bootleg, but it is an unofficial recording, even if it is legal. I have about 50 live recordings of Seattle bands. I do not consider myself a bootlegger. Like you, I have no idea why the taper community has not moved on to a better format. I guess it does all they need it to. I added features to Shorten which I needed, but eventually I needed way more than I had time to add. [ Flac is not that popular, by far the most popular format is .ape; [ if you look on the a.b.sounds.lossless/misc newsgroups, most of [ the material is encoded in .ape format. Lossless formats are [ approx. 50% of the size of the original .wav file Monkeys Audio may be more popular, but it is not available for the Mac. The source code is available, but since it includes assembly language and is organized into DLLs, I doubt it will be easy to make APE available for Unix or Mac. FLAC files are sometimes as small as 33% or 25% of the original. [ I'm not familiar what platforms all these codecs span, but a [ little research should answer any queries. I'm only familiar with [ a P/C setup, perhaps others can add to this about different [ platforms? In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with FLAC except its popularity. Since it is available for all platforms, is easily added to any audio player (I've done so), and it is being used in audio hardware devices, then I would like to see Yello songs available by ftp in the FLAC format. Using APE means I won't be able to listen! :-( [ EAC (Exact Audio Copy) is considered one of the most accurate [ software programs for ripping .wavs off your CD before encoding. Another popular program is cdparanoia, available as part of the cdrtools and cdrdao open source projects. I have not yet used any of these tools, but the idea is to repeatedly read sectors that might be bad until a perfect copy is obtained. This is a great idea for scratched CDs. These tools are not useful for copying one CD to another in real time - you have to save the CD image to disk - because any scratches on the source CD might slow down the copy too much and cause the burn to fail. But once you have the perfect/exact image on disk, you can burn as many copies as you want. You might even be able to fix a scratched CD this way! Well, it won't actually fix the original CD, but you'll have a backup that plays much better. [ Ripping vinyl from your turntable through your soundcard produces [ excellent quality .wav files as long as you have a quality [ turntable. You also need a high quality phono preamp, and perhaps additional audio gear to make an excellent quality recording. There are at least two major problems with using just your soundcard. First, any audio circuitry inside a computer will produce more digital noise in the recording than a standalone audio device which is shielded. Second, all vinyl is recorded with an RIAA equalization curve which makes the cutting lathe work better. The EQ cuts the bass so the needle won't be thrown out of the groove, and boosts the treble so that it will be louder than most of the noise on the record. When you play back a record through a phono preamp, the RIAA EQ curve boosts the bass back to the normal level, and cuts the highs to reduce the record surface noise without lowering the treble of the music below its original levels. I only know of a few recording applications which have the correct EQ when recording though your soundcard. Without RIAA EQ on playback, you lose a lot of bass, and the treble is too harsh (early CDs were considered too harsh, when in fact they were improperly made from vinyl masters that were not RIAA decoded). You can buy an external phono preamp to connect between the turntable and soundcard, but most of these little preamps add lots of analog noise. Even with the proper EQ, you still get some computer noise in the recording from a soundcard, although most people won't hear it without a very high powered stereo system. I use a ROTEL phono preamp, which has very low noise, and a DAT (Digital Audio Tape) deck to make a digital recording of my records. Once the audio is in digital format, without any computer noise, I copy the digital audio from the DAT to my computer over a digital link. This is the ultimate quality. But you still have to worry about worn needles and the accidental bump against the turntable while recording (so I always turn the speakers down low so the bass doesn't upset the turntable). Obviously, not everybody has a nice phono preamp and DAT. But you should at least document whether you used a phono preamp or software RIAA EQ when recording. If not, the RIAA EQ can be added later. Brian Willoughby Sound Consulting