Hi- Res download newbie

I've just entered the world of hi-res downloads and would appreciate some advice. I've been utilizing a program called "traders little helper" to convert from a flac file to a wave.(my ps audio pw won't play flac), and a program called IMG burn to write the file to disk. Are these the best programs for the task or are there better options out there. Any advice for this newbie would be greatly appreciated.
Dan