I wanted to post a quick follow up detailing what software I ended up settling on.

Music Player & Store: iTunes - Wasn’t really much of a choice. I really like the clean approach that Apple has. As I said in my last post I just can’t stand how it manages the music library. The other nice thing about iTunes is they also have the best music store around… if you can get over the fact that they DRM a lot of the music your purchase and that a lot of it can be low bitrate. If you are aware of it though you can buy iTunes Plus content for the same price. The music is DRM free and 256kbps. Very nice (look for the + next to the price).

Music Library Management: Wen Software Music Library - A very nice package for managing ID3 tags, file names, folders etc. This really provides the easily manageable library tools that iTunes is missing. I can’t say enough how pleased I am with this tool.

Music DRM Removal: NoteBurner - I try and just buy iTunes Plus songs when possible, but for those few albums I want to be able to backup in an open standard or play my non iTunes players this little package works very well. It basically shortcuts the “burn to CD then rip back into MP3″ by making the CD burner virtual. Neat trick.

Music Conversion: RiverPast Audio Converter - When you do need to convert… this is the tool to go to. It doesn’t have a ton of features, but what it does do well is convert music. It works really really well in large batches. A definite go to tool when conversion from any to any format is required.