Taper's Section vs LiveVault
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.
LiveVault
Explore thousands of historic live Grateful Dead performances with this mobile streaming player. Discover new shows, browse by era, and curate your personal library of legendary concerts with gapless playback.
- Thousands of historic live Grateful Dead shows
- Explore shows by era and year
- Gapless audio playback
- Robust song catalog
- Personal library for favorite shows
- On This Day discovery feature
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Explore live Grateful Dead performances with LiveVault. Browse shows by date and era, discover performances of your favorite songs, and stream recordings hosted by the Internet Archive. LiveVault is free. Browse and play music without an account. Sign in to use Live Guide and My Trip, with no payment card or subscription required. FIND THE SHOW See shows performed on today's month and day, browse by year and era, and explore a curated catalog of 166 songs with their live performances. CHOOSE THE TAPE Inspect up to ten same-date recordings with SBD, AUD, or MTX labels, ratings, reviews, and download counts, then pick the one you want to hear. Choosing a source changes the recording and setlist. PRESS PLAY Full-show playback with background audio, lock-screen controls, queue and seek, and resume from your saved position. LIVE GUIDE Follow one shared daily episode built around the recordings. Narration alternates with selected Archive-hosted recordings in a visible timeline. Narration is AI-generated and may contain errors. Guide availability depends on the published episode catalog. Free with sign-in. MY TRIP Keep a personal listening trail across shows, songs, venues, years, and milestones, and revisit what you discover. You can turn listening-history collection off in settings. Free with sign-in. YOUR LIBRARY Save favorites, write notes, and build playlists. Previously saved shows remain playable on the device where you saved them. LiveVault is an unofficial, third-party streaming client. Music streams from the public catalog hosted by the Internet Archive (archive.org). LiveVault is not affiliated with the Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead Productions, Rhino, nugs.net, the Internet Archive, or any artist. Recording availability varies. AI-generated context may contain errors. Privacy Policy: https://www.livevaultapp.com/privacy Terms of Use: https://www.livevaultapp.com/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: LiveVault at 5.0 against Taper's Section's 4.5. LiveVault also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 90%). Taper's Section's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 16.4). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
LiveVault holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 39 and 20 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 90% of Taper's Section's written reviews are positive against 100% of LiveVault's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Taper's Section | LiveVault |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (39 ratings) | 5.0 (20 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 39 — better | 20 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Franklin Kesler | LiveVault App, LLC |
Customer experience
Taper's Section
LiveVault
In-app purchases
Taper's Section
No in-app purchases
LiveVault
No in-app purchases
