Deadsound vs Heady Set
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Deadsound
Access and stream over 17,000 Grateful Dead live recordings. Search shows by date, venue, song, or source, and build a personal library of your favorite performances. Enjoy offline playback and daily historical discoveries.
- Search 17,000+ Grateful Dead recordings
- Filter by date, venue, song, or source
- Intelligent caching for offline playback
- Background playback with lock screen controls
- Gapless audio
- Favorite and track listened shows
- Daily historical discoveries
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Every Dead show. One app. We built Deadsound because finding the best tapes on should be easy. Now you can search 17,000+ Grateful Dead recordings by date, venue, song, or source, and start listening in seconds. FIND ANYTHING Search by setlist to find every "Dark Star," or every show where they played "Dark Star" plus "Estimated" and also "Blow Away." Filter by Charlie Miller transfers or Betty Boards, or by AUD/SBD/Matrix. Narrow by year, city, or venue. LISTEN ANYWHERE Intelligent caching means your music keeps playing even when your signal doesn't. Full background playback with lock screen controls, all with gapless audio. BUILD YOUR LIBRARY Favorite the shows that matter. Track what you've heard. Pick up where you left off. DISCOVER DAILY See what happened today in Dead history. A new discovery every day. Completely free. No ads. No subscription. The music belongs to everyone. Streams from Archive.org. Not affiliated with the Grateful Dead.
Heady Set
Track your concert experiences and share them with friends. Get personalized statistics about your favorite artists, songs, and venues. This app is free and ad-free, built for music lovers.
- Setlist tracking
- Show history
- Friend sharing
- Personalized stats
- Artist tracking
- Song tracking
- Venue tracking
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Heady Set is the setlist tracker built for the jam band and live music community. Log every show you attend, keep a running history of the songs and venues you've experienced, and unlock personalized stats about the artists you love — Grateful Dead, Phish, Billy Strings, or whoever's on your tour list this year! TRACK YOUR SHOWS Build a complete log of every concert you've been to - venue, date, setlist, and who you went with. Your show history becomes a permanent, personal archive of your live music journey. PERSONALIZED STATS See how many times you've seen your favorite songs live, which venues you frequent most, how your most-seen artists stack up against each other, and how your concert-going has evolved over time. SHARE WITH FRIENDS Compare notes with friends, see who was at the same shows as you, and relive tours together. FREE. NO ADS. NO CATCH. Heady Set is a passion project built by a fan, for fans. It's free today and will stay free and ad-free - always. No paywalls, just a tool for people who love music. Have a question, feature request, or bug to report? Reach out to me directly at aaron@headyset.net - I love hearing from users and will do my best to make your ideas come to life!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Deadsound at fortnightly against Heady Set's every 3 months. Deadsound also leads on ratings volume (7 vs 1). Heady Set's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.7). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Heady Set holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Deadsound has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Deadsound ships an update fortnightly, Heady Set every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Deadsound | Heady Set |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 45 MB | 60 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Barnes | AARON THEODORE KY-RIESENBACH |
Customer experience
Deadsound
Heady Set
In-app purchases
Deadsound
No in-app purchases
Heady Set
No in-app purchases








