Audio Converter Software to download files from streaming services

[Mr. Swordfish]

Streaming is just not my thing. I listen primarily to JRiver Media Center, and have a Sony NW-A306 "mp3" player for the car. So, my preference is to have the files stored locally instead of depending on the intertubes to possibly deliver a file that might not be there in the future for whatever reason. With a 5TB external drive for the PC and a 1TB SD card for the Sony, storage is not at a premium.

We have a Spotify subscription and I just signed up for Tidal. The next step is to look at software that allows saving for off-line listening. There are a bunch and I'm curious to hear opinions, good or bad, about the various offerings.

A cursory internet search turns up the following options:

• AudiFab
• Kigo
• DropTrack
• Volumo
• AudiCable
• AudFree
• Macsome
• Noteburner
• Tidabie

And several others. They all seem to do more or less the same thing, which is to grab the files from the streaming service and save it to the local file system. Curious what experiences folks here have to share. Thanks.

 

[waofner]

would like to have my quobuz playlist on usb for my car stereo!
(mp3 320 would do)

is this possible?

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

I'll go first, although it's far from a dispositive analysis. After spending an afternoon reading a bunch of reviews and specs I tried the free version of Kigo Music One, which worked adequately well enough that I just went ahead and bought a one-year license for $80. I've downloaded about a dozen albums from both Tidal and Spotify without much headache and heartburn.

You may recall from another thread that I'm in the process of digitizing a bunch of vinyl records, and if I can find them on either Spotify or Tidal it's easier to simply download them than recording the vinyl. It's also a digital version instead of a recorded LP which presumably will sound a bit better.

Some observations:

• The documentation of step by step instructions is wrong, but my experience is that in today's world the documentation of any GUI is always wrong, so I suppose I can't hold that against them. It took a while to find the "convert" button that the docs said to click next, since you had to click through two screens to get to the "convert" button and it wasn't at all clear what to click to eventually get to the "next" step.
• One I figured it out, it's fairly easy to search for material, add it to the conversion queue, and then only a few minutes before the files are all in the folder I specified. Importing it into my music software is easy from there.
• The UI for Spotify uses a web browser built into the app, and you just search and add the tracks you want, then click the big PLUS SIGN at the lower right to initiate the download
• The UI for Tidal is quite different. Kigo uses the the Tidal windows app instead of the web version. Not sure how they accomplish this, but it works very well once you figure it out (nothing in the docs about this UI twist)
• There's a robust set of configurations for how to download - format, bit rate, etc. but I'm not sure how it all works. Since the UI employs the web version of Spotify, the files are 256k m4a, which is fine, but you have the option of saving as .wav or .flac, which seems to be a waste of bits. The Tidal downloads as .flac seem to be "real" although I haven't confirmed it.
• Both Tidal and Spotify have weird search behaviors - Spotify spits out different results depending on how you get there, and Tidal search function returns a bunch of results in the Web UI that are missing from the desktop app. But this appears to be unrelated to Kigo.

So, that's my short limited evaluation. I didn't try any of the other options, so there is probably a cheaper option as well as a more fully-featured option, but for $80 it's not worth my time to investigate further. They offer a "lifetime" license for about $50 more, and I may or may not upgrade to that. I also haven't tried other streaming services, so perhaps other options work better with, say, Apple Music or YouTube. No idea there.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

would like to have my quobuz playlist on usb for my car stereo!
(mp3 320 would do)

is this possible?

From what I've read, yes. In fact, according to Kigo, they make the best Qobuz Music Downloader. The free trial allows you do download the first minute of every track, so no cost to evaluate it.

Interesting, that all the other software vendors make a similar claim. Caveat Emptor.

 

[voodooless]

Both Spotify and Tidal support offline mode. All else will probably violate their terms of service.

If you don’t like streaming, buy the albums…

 

[OldTimer]

You still need to buy those software. You can get free music from torrenting sites, such as tpb.party. Just search: FLAC 2025

 

[Esprit]

just signed up for Tidal

TIDAL allows downloading to mobile devices.

 

[RickS]

Pretty sure this discussion is looming around questionably illegal behavior. If so, it will have a short existence here.

 

[DVDdoug]

I'm not the copyright police but just FYI - It IS a copyright violation (unless you are using the DRM limited options from then streaming provider). And the artist (or copyright holder) gets a fraction of a penny every time you stream, and of course nothing once you've stolen it. If you buy a legitimate copy the performing artist and composer both get a few cents.

And if the stream is lossy and you save to lossy format you are going through two generations of lossy compression. (Even if you use the same format it's going to be re-encoded.)

Qobuz sells legitimate lossless files, both CD quality and high resolution.
Or you can buy MP3s from Amazon or M4A's from iTunes.
Or of course you can buy CDs and it's not a copyright violation to rip them to another format for personal use. (Just don't publish them on then Internet or distribute pirated copies. )

I'm in the process of digitizing a bunch of vinyl records,

Or you can "rationalize" that since you've paid for the record and the artist and everybody else has already been paid for your copy, it's OK to steal a digital copy...

 

[somebodyelse]

Or of course you can buy CDs and it's not a copyright violation to rip them to another format for personal use.

That depends on which jurisdiction you're in. In the US it's allowed under Fair Use. In the UK it's not, despite an attempt to change the law to allow it. Some countries have a blank media levy to offset the losses.

 

[mglobe]

Pretty sure this discussion is pushing questionably illegal behavior. If so, it will have a short existence here.

Beat me to it. Musicians get paid per stream I believe, so the “theft” is actually from the folks that make the music.

 

[somebodyelse]

Musicians get paid per stream I believe, so the “theft” is actually from the folks that make the music.

Sort of, depending on the streaming provider. Between the opaque accounting, tolerance of fraud and variability of rate there's an argument that most of the "theft" is by the companies doing the streaming. Not so dissimilar to the old complaints about the major record labels. Multiple estimates suggest musicians get ~10x as much per stream from Qobuz than Spotify or Amazon Music, and YouTube Music is significantly lower even than them. https://www.isrc.com/how-much-streaming-services-pay-artists-per-play-2025.php for example.

If you really care about the musicians getting the money then pick your streaming company accordingly, or find another way to get the money into their hands.

 

[sergeauckland]

For the few musicians I REALLY want to support, I buy their CDs, then stream the music from Spotify, so they get paid both ways!

S.

 

[mglobe]

Sort of, depending on the streaming provider. Between the opaque accounting, tolerance of fraud and variability of rate there's an argument that most of the "theft" is by the companies doing the streaming. Not so dissimilar to the old complaints about the major record labels. Multiple estimates suggest musicians get ~10x as much per stream from Qobuz than Spotify or Amazon Music, and YouTube Music is significantly lower even than them. https://www.isrc.com/how-much-streaming-services-pay-artists-per-play-2025.php for example.

If you really care about the musicians getting the money then pick your streaming company accordingly, or find another way to get the money into their hands.

To be clear, I agree that the streaming companies are not compensating the musicians appropriately. But capturing the stream, and then playing the music from your hard drive makes it even worse. And yes, the streaming companies know that 99% of the listeners, including myself, won’t go out and buy the CD and rip it to their hard drive for their own consumption.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

Since this is a technical forum I was looking for technical info. Feel free to weigh in with economic and ethical issues, but that's not what brings me here.

Reading between the lines, it appears that the various software offerings' output files have gone through a round-trip of D/A/D. Can anyone confirm this?