Thanks in advance if you can help me with a music management question.  

I have 80 GB of music converted to mp3 on iTunes because that's all my iPod will hold.  The rest, including the original flac and shn that I've converted to mp3, I keep on an external hard drive and use the free Winamp player to play it.  Because it keeps trying to sell me stuff and impose its fucking toolbar on me, I wanted to dump Winamp and considered trying to build a library using Windows Media Player, but 1) I can't get it not to add my iPod library as well as the stuff on the external drive, and 2) it won't play my flac files anyway.   So, in giving in to the idea that I have to stick with Winamp or something similar, I am curious to know

A) Is the premium Winamp you pay for much better than the free version and worth the cost (it's cheap I know but I'm reluctant to buy it anyway)?
B) Is there an alternative to Winamp I should consider to play my external drive library?
C) Is it dumb of me to keep the shn version of stuff converted to flac, or the flac version of stuff I've converted (I can't tell the damn difference between the original flac and the mp3 version) and
D) Does a player exist that plays shn without converting it first to flac?  
E) Is there a free shn-to-flac or mp3 conversion program out there that doesn't expire in a month?  I've used a bunch in the past, but at this point, I can't do anything with my shn files, and I have to burn my flac files to disc with Nero then convert them to mp3 with iTunes.  This is obviously very inefficient.  Can one program do all?  If I break down and buy one, which is best?

Any insight would be really appreciated.  

("Boy, you sure ask a lot of questions for somebody from New Jersey.")  

I'll give it a shot...


Zack wrote on Jun 28^th, 2009 at 1:30pm:

Thanks in advance if you can help me with a music management question.   I have 80 GB of music converted to mp3 on iTunes because that's all my iPod will hold.  The rest, including the original flac and shn that I've converted to mp3, I keep on an external hard drive and use the free Winamp player to play it.  Because it keeps trying to sell me stuff and impose its fucking toolbar on me, I wanted to dump Winamp and considered trying to build a library using Windows Media Player, but 1) I can't get it not to add my iPod library as well as the stuff on the external drive, and 2) it won't play my flac files anyway.   So, in giving in to the idea that I have to stick with Winamp or something similar, I am curious to know

I haven't had much of a problem with Winamp upsells and the tool bar. It is my preferred media player.


Quote:

A) Is the premium Winamp you pay for much better than the free version and worth the cost (it's cheap I know but I'm reluctant to buy it anyway)?

Never tried it.


Quote:

B) Is there an alternative to Winamp I should consider to play my external drive library? C) Is it dumb of me to keep the shn version of stuff converted to flac, or the flac version of stuff I've converted (I can't tell the damn difference between the original flac and the mp3 version) and

If you do any trading, seeding, burning, re-seeding, then probably. I burn everything on Data DVD's.



Quote:

D) Does a player exist that plays shn without converting it first to flac?

Winamp


Quote:

E) Is there a free shn-to-flac or mp3 conversion program out there that doesn't expire in a month?  I've used a bunch in the past, but at this point, I can't do anything with my shn files, and I have to burn my flac files to disc with Nero then convert them to mp3 with iTunes.  This is obviously very inefficient.  Can one program do all?  If I break down and buy one, which is best?

Convert the SHNs and FLACs to wav first, then MP3.

Freerip has a FLAC to MP3 option but it was so slow the one time I tried it that I went to Wav first with the FLAC program then MP3.

Freerip is a good program but it only converts in batches of 5 tracks maximum unless you buy it. I mostly just convert samples, random tracks or even untracked wavs.

Thanks, man.   How do I get Winamp to play my shn?  

Zack wrote on Jun 28^th, 2009 at 4:10pm:

Thanks, man.   How do I get Winamp to play my shn?

Now that I think about it, I think I needed to download a plug in but I don't really remember...

I switched from Winamp to MediaMonkey, which I'd recommend.
great media management and other stuff.
have a look at it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaMonkey

media monkey seems the most flexible for playing a variety of media...I use creative media source player myself for my flacs and wav's and windows media player for the mp3's.....if I had to do it over, I'd go with media monkey

Thanks, gentlemen . . .  made the switch to Media Monkey.  Looks like it's going to be great soon as I figure out the ropes.

:booze