xACT 2.54

Add music or other audio tracks to your library or online service like iTunes. Decode and encode tracks in rare formats. Work with LAME, SoX, TagLib, AtomicParsley, and mp4v2 content. Identify and reconstruct SHN, AIFF, FLAC, OFR, ALAC, MKW, ALS, etc.

Even though the name of this app, xAct, does not help much in guessing what it is about, everything becomes clearer when you know that it stands for X Audio Compression Toolkit. In fact, what xAct does is providing a graphical user interface for a series of command-line audio tools “running under the hood.”

The application has a straightforward, quite Spartan, interface, which is characterized by allowing you to access each tool from a different tab. By opening the Decode tab, for example, you can easily convert files in such compressed formats as FLAC, SHN, Monkey’s audio, Wavepack and Apple Lossless into WAV or AIFF. The following tab, called “Encode”, does exactly the opposite as it converts WAV or AIFF files into compressed formats. Similarly, there is the Lossy tab to convert lossless formats into MP3 or ACC files.

Next, there is the Checksum tab, which allows three main operations: verifying audio files as well as creating and verifying Checksum files. The tab labeled “shntool”, in turn, supports various procedures, which include joining PCM data from multiple files and splitting PCM data from a single file into various. Likewise, it helps comparing the PCM data in two files, among other things.

Fortunately, there is also the Tags tab in case you need to edit tags of files in any file format that supports them. However, it is far from being as powerful as other similar tools specifically intended for this purpose.

Some other useful operations without a close relationship between each other can be found in the tab called Util. They comprise ripping audio CDs, adding replay gain to FLAC, removing emphasis from 16-bit audio files and creating disc images.

Logically, most of the power of this app comes from the already mentioned command-line tools, which are all great and have been extensively used without difficulties. Using the individual tools is very easy, so you will not have much difficult to use them. In this regard, drag-and-drop operations and batch processing are supported. Regrettably, I feel the interface lacks integration between the different tabs. This means, for example, that you need to load the same files every time you switch tabs.

All in all, it is great that we can have such a great collection of audio tools at our disposal. Besides, most of us will thank the developer for saving us from having to use the command line instead. This product is, luckily, free to use.