Can EAC be used to convert FLAC or SHN files to WAV? I am trying to balance sound quality with ease of use. I am not trying to become a programmer here. Is EAC the best option? I hear its the most accurate.

Can someone at least direct me to a relevant thread of site?

I do believe there is a method to do this with EAC, but I do not know it off the top of my head.

Foobar2000 can do this by right clicking on the desired file, selecting "convert" and picking a format. More options to tweak this are available through preferences. I believe this is the easiest method to work with.

Winamp can do this, as long as the FLAC plugin is installed, by selecting "diskwriter" as the output device in preferences.

The FLAC package has a command-line option to do this, please see the FLAC documentation. Currenty, the FLAC homepage is down.

FLAC is lossless: provided the decompressor used is working correctly, any program that can read FLAC and spit out a WAV file will do so with perfect accuracy. EAC is known for its accuracy in ripping music from CD's. It is not nesscesary to use EAC to convert from FLAC to WAV with accuracy.

Thanks for the info.

Is any of the aformentioned software shareware?

All the software he mentioned is freeware.

http://www.foobar2000.org/

I was using it to convert some files earlier today. Just do a full install to get all the features.

Where do you get the features?

When you install Foobar2000, select full install.
Add the file you want to convert to your play list.
Right click on the file to convert, and select convert -- convert to.
You can select 'more settings' to tweak your target encoder and settings.

Another great option is dBpowerAMP Music Converter.

For God's sake use the search function! Everything you need to know has already been put up in some form or another (in this case, you can use Foobar2000 to convert to whatever format you choose).

Here are some links you can read up on:

Hydrogenaudio's Wiki
Lossless Codec Comparison
Foobar2000 Wiki

And to top it off, read this to help you become more of an independent researcher where you can pretty much answer most (if not all) of your basic questions, saving the more challenging questions for the forums. Oh, and by the way, (mods, you can modify/delete this if you think this is crossing the line), your mindset of not wanting to be a programmer already exposes your prejudices against doing the work that needs to be done to attain self-enlightenment. The truth is, many of these audio tools do not need that much technical knowledge to configure, and if you get stuck on configuring one of these tools, you can always rely on good ol' Google for help Only when you are certain that Googling will not answer your question should you pose the question to the experts.

Yeah, I'm tired, I didn't get any sleep, and I have homework due tomorrow, so bear with me.