SHN on Mac

[snagu]

I've used Cog for the past several years on my MacBook to play old SHN files, but it seems that this program is either decommisioned or no longer compatible with the latest version of OSX. Any recommendations for another program that can play SHN without converting them to WAV first??

The original developer of Cog doesn't seem to have updated it for years. Fortunately, it is open source and there are a couple of forks. I've personally compiled my own copy, but you might have better luck with a version from http://mamburu.net/cog/ (though that one is still from 2013). In any case, I loathe SHN with a passion, so I always convert them to FLAC anyway. No, I never use iTunes as a media player, so the fact that it can't play FLAC (or SHN for that matter) doesn't bother me.

[Beechwoods]

Kode54 is maintaining a working fork of Cog, which plays SHN and runs on the latest version of MacOS Mojave.

https://kode54.net/cog/

While SHN is a deprecated format now, I much prefer playing files natively rather than transcoding them...

[jimfisheye]

What's the favorite media player nowadays around here?

I haven't tried Cog in years. Heh, about the only thing more wholly obsolete than Cog player or .shn format is iTunes! Still disabling FLAC playback by default to push ALAC (except they still only sell lossy in their store... Kick the ball away. And kick it away again. And again...). Itunes still just sits there and does nothing with surround files even in the native ALAC format too. Abandon-ware.

I keep going back to Songbird (which seems to be long in the tooth for updates itself). VLC would be a good candidate except that it only handles 2.0 and 5.1 correctly. Any other channel format (4.0, 4.1, 5.0, etc) comes out wrong speakers. Songbird lets you mix and match formats in the same playlist and everything comes out the correct speakers. Most surround is mastered to a 5.1 container regardless of channel format nowadays to force the issue but you still find the other channel formats out in the wild (even on bluray discs). Songbird does not play .shn however. I've converted a number of older .shn files to FLAC too. (It's a fully lossless transcode. But the concern might be more about preserving the original for identification purposes.)

[Beechwoods]

My main player of choice is Vox. It does everything I need bar SHN. It handles CUE files, High Res and Multichannel files and is nice and simple.

https://vox.rocks/mac-music-player

It’s free. Just ignore the subscription features.

[Cyberspace]

Thanks for the heads up because of Cog. Seems it won´t come through the update function though - direct download from the website and the version number stays the same.

Vox I used in the past also - nice player. Max would need an update urgently. Still use iTunes and convert flac to m4a alac - but I agree it´s an pain in the ass. But I´m so used to this monster software... There was an plug-in for iTunes which could handle flacs in the past, but it won´t work with newer iTunes anymore.

[jimfisheye]

Songbird is like an updated and bug fixed iTunes. Very similar GUI.
Downloading Vox now. I'll report back.

[Cyberspace]

Songbird is like an updated and bug fixed iTunes. Very similar GUI.
Downloading Vox now. I'll report back.

Used Songbird some good years back. Think there were some issues with it that I cancelled using it. Maybe I it should give it another try...

[snagu]

Thanks for the heads up because of Cog. Seems it won´t come through the update function though - direct download from the website and the version number stays the same.

No, if you have a copy from the original developer the update can't come through the update function, because that would require the original developer to keep developing it! Just download a fresher build from a more active maintainer. The joys of open source. I'm still using my build of Cog. Sure it's not the prettiest, but if Jim describes Songbird as a fixed up version of iTunes, I personally will pass because I hate the iTunes style UIs. Should be fine for almost everyone else.

As for Vox, I have the iOS version (because it supports Carplay), but I find the UI irritating. It looks like it won't scale well to a very big music collection either.

While SHN is a deprecated format now, I much prefer playing files natively rather than transcoding them...

To each their own, but I personally can't see the point in putting up with the inconveniences of SHN (e.g. poor seekability, if any at all, during playback) and converting to WAV or FLAC or APE or ALAC or anything lossless can be done, well, losslessly. I don't get the concern about transcoding. As a compressed file format, technically it kind of has to get transcoded to an uncompressed format during playback anyway.

[Cyberspace]

As for Vox, I have the iOS version (because it supports Carplay), but I find the UI irritating. It looks like it won't scale well to a very big music collection either.

Agreed! It doesn´t scale well with big music collections. That´s why I stopped using it. This is the main reason why I still stick with ugly iTunes. But I use it togehter with TuneSpan: https://tunespan.com/ It´s nearly impossible to store around 200.000 songs at one external only. Not sure if Songbird is able to handle different media locations too, but I will have a look...

[Cyberspace]

Well, Songbird is discontinued since 2013, so not an recommendation for newer Macs / OS.

But maybe the Nightingale fork does the trick: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ngale/

edit: Nightingale´s last update was from 2015 I just noticed. Not so easy to find an real alternate for iTunes. Mojave is the last OS that will work with 32-Bit applications by the way. So I think it´s useless to change the complete music system if there is nothing reliable around.