Cog - Play .flac and .shn Files in OS X

tonymacx86 · Feb 11, 2015

Just a quick note for all of you who love those odd little single-purpose open source Mac apps.

If you're a fan of lossless audio compression like me you know about .flac (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and .shn (Shorten). These files don't play directly in iTunes or any iPod/iPhone. On OS X the best way to play them directly without transcoding or decompressing is to use Cog. It's a fully open sourced audio file player that just works- hasn't been updated in some time, but I can report that it works with the latest version of OS X Yosemite perfectly.

:thumbup:

Download Cog
http://cogx.org/download.php
http://cogx.org/development.php (Latest build)

shaveblog · Feb 12, 2015

Curious what Cog brings to the table that VLC doesn't?

frnzkfk · Feb 12, 2015

Vox is a more modern and minimalist take on lossless playback.

http://coppertino.com

tonymacx86 · Feb 12, 2015

shaveblog said:
Curious what Cog brings to the table that VLC doesn't?

VLC doesn't play .shn files. It will play .flac tho.

frnzkfk said:
Vox is a more modern and minimalist take on lossless playback.

http://coppertino.com

Thanks for the link to Vox, i'd never heard of that player. :thumbup:

maciator · Feb 13, 2015

Vox works perfectly to play flac and other unsupported codecs.
Also with the right software it is possible to convert flac to alac (apple lossless) and then play this on iTunes.
Just can't remember the software I used to do this

dwckabal · Feb 13, 2015

maciator said:
Vox works perfectly to play flac and other unsupported codecs.
Also with the right software it is possible to convert flac to alac (apple lossless) and then play this on iTunes.
Just can't remember the software I used to do this

Probably XLD:

http://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

Nodarkthings · Feb 14, 2015

Be aware that Vox runs a pretty agressive daemon in the background, located at /VOX.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/VOXAgent.app.
If you don't want to have it running, you have to trash it before your first run.
Vox.app continues working perfectly after that operation.

There's an other suggestion at Vox's Macupdate page, dealing with file /private/var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd.peruser.XXX/overrides.plist (where XXX is the current user ID number), if you prefer.
I've been using Cog for a long time, still works ok, but Vox has some nice prefs and a more elegant look. :thumbup:

pcpaul · Feb 14, 2015

For flac cue playback there's also a Clementine, it's free, in functionality quite similar to Foobar for windows.
Paid apps:
Swinsian
Decibel
Both support cue files, don't know if either of these support .shn, though.

Yoga · Feb 14, 2015

If you're serious about music quality, get Audirvana Plus.

It's not free, but it's well (well) worth it in terms of SQ.

dddirtman · Feb 14, 2015

tonymacx86 said:
VLC doesn't play .shn files. It will play .flac tho.

Thanks for the link to Vox, i'd never heard of that player.

vox will be more familiar to users of linux,most distros come with it

i use fidelia (app store 19.99usd),plays many lossless formats.

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Cog - Play .flac and .shn Files in OS X

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