Taper's Section vs Live Music Archive
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Taper's Section
Access a vast library of live music recordings from archive.org. Stream, save, and organize your favorite shows, build playlists, and enjoy offline listening. Features background playback and powerful search capabilities.
- Stream live music from archive.org
- Save favorite bands and shows
- Background streaming
- Offline listening
- Powerful search and filtering
- Build and share playlists
- Manage play queue
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Taper's Section gives you access to the Live Music Archive from archive.org in the palm of your hand. * Stream your favorite shows from over 5,000 bands * Save your favorite bands and shows for quick access * Easily access your recently played shows * Background streaming with Bluetooth and AirPlay compatibility * Powerful search and filtering options * Build playlists and share them with your friends * Build a play queue, reorder your queue, and make it a new playlist * Offline listening - save your data plan while listening to your downloaded shows while away from WiFi.
Live Music Archive
Stream a vast collection of live concert recordings from the Internet Archive and Phish.in. Discover music by artist, venue, or date, and enjoy features like offline playback, cross-device syncing, and a visualizer.
- Massive live music library
- Search by artist, venue, date
- Offline playback
- Cross-device syncing
- CarPlay integration
- Concert visualizer
- Lossless audio support
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The world's live music, in your pocket. Stream the Internet Archive's massive collection of concert recordings, plus a huge archive of live Phish shows from Phish.in. Thousands of artists from the 1960s to today: Grateful Dead, Billy Strings, Goose, String Cheese Incident, and so many more. Discover. Search by artist, taper, venue, festival, date, or song. Browse recent shows or dive deep into decades of music. Listen your way. Let Infinite Shuffle keep the music going, queue up what's next with Play Next and Add to Queue, or hand off playback between your devices. Stream over Bluetooth and AirPlay, in lossless FLAC if you like. Set a sleep timer to drift off. Scrobble to Last.fm or Libre.fm. Take it on the road. CarPlay puts your shows right on the dash, and Siri starts them hands-free: just say "Play a show on Live Music Archive." See the music. The visualizer turns any concert into a live light show that reacts to every note. And the whole app comes in Light or Dark. Always have something to listen to. Download shows for offline play. Offline Refresh automatically swaps out finished shows for new ones, so your library stays fresh, even without a connection. Make it yours. Favorite artists, shows, tapers, and venues sync across your devices and your archive.org account. Track your listening history. Share concerts with friends. Terms and Conditions: https://livemusicarchive.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://livemusicarchive.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Taper's Section at none against Live Music Archive's 5. Taper's Section also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.0). Live Music Archive's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 3 months) and rating (4.9 vs 4.5). On price, review sentiment, ads and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Live Music Archive sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Taper's Section asks for nothing beyond the download.
Live Music Archive holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Live Music Archive has 1.8K ratings behind it against 40, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 90% of Taper's Section's written reviews are positive against 95% of Live Music Archive's.
Taper's Section ships an update every 3 months, Live Music Archive every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Taper's Section | Live Music Archive |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (40 ratings) | 4.9 (1.8K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.0% of reviews | 94.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 40 | 1.8K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 93 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Franklin Kesler | Astral Engineering LLC |
Customer experience
Taper's Section
Live Music Archive
Bugs and requests
Taper's Section
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Live Music Archive
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes on launch for some users
- Buggy offline download feature
- Incompatibility with older devices
Requested features
4 requests- Add Carplay support
- Implement an equalizer
- Allow playlist creation
- Add login and review functionality
In-app purchases
Taper's Section
No in-app purchases
Live Music Archive
- Nice Tip$0.99
- Generous Tip$2.99
- Amazing Tip$4.99
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- Wonderful Tip$9.99
- Astronomical Tip$19.99
Questions
Is Taper's Section free?
Is Live Music Archive free?
Which has better reviews, Taper's Section or Live Music Archive?
Do Taper's Section or Live Music Archive have ads?
Which is updated more often, Taper's Section or Live Music Archive?
Other comparisons
