Audials Music review

Audials Music is the new, improved version of Tunebites, and it's an impressive upgrade to an already great app.

Audials Music review
(Image: © Audials)

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

Audials Music is feature-packed and powerful, offering enhanced, high-speed audio conversion and plenty more functions. It's a little pricey, but what you get is market-leading audio software.

Pros

  • +

    So many features

  • +

    Optimized for Spotify

  • +

    Works very fast

Cons

  • -

    Quite expensive

  • -

    Confusing to start with

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Audials Music (formerly Audials Tunebite) is a powerful piece of software capable of handling almost any audio conversion task you care to throw at it. It's easily one of the best audio converter software packages we've seen, and there have been a raft of improvements made for the 2020 version, which has even seen a name change from Tunebite to Audials Music. If you're a user with a previous iteration of Audials, you can upgrade to the latest software and get a discount off the regular price, which stands at just under $40.

Audials Music review: Features

First of all, let's look at performance. To test Audials Music's audio recording capabilities, we played a Spotify station continuously for around eight hours. This software records the audio at the same quality you hear when listening to it as it streams, and it separates each song into a playlist, normalizes the volume, converts the files to MP3s, and labels each song. It's extremely powerful and versatile. We also used the free version of Spotify to see how Music labeled the commercials, and to spot any errors or bugs in the conversion process. Thankfully, there were no issues here - the commercials are easy to pick out in the playlist and delete.

Audial Music works with all the latest streaming platforms too, including Amazon Music, Deezer, and Tidal, although Spotify is the most popular right now. The latest version of the software is optimized for use with Spotify, and is designed to rapidly and cleanly download, convert, and tidy tracks from the service.

Audials Music review

(Image credit: Audials)

A cool new feature for 2020 is the ability to ask Audials Music to download charts and YouTube playlists, giving you a chance to gather new audio tracks really easily. This is good for new music discovery and, if you like a set of tracks and want to organize it into a playlist that can be uploaded back to Spotify, this option is available too.

The only real issue is that it takes time to figure all these features out. While Audials Music's interface is intuitive, there are a lot of features packed into it, so finding out how to do things and initiate processes does take some figuring out. While there are FAQs, it's actually knowing what's possible that poses the biggest barrier to enjoying these features. In a way, though, this is a good problem to have, and if you love to customize and play around with your music and playlists, there's fun to be had trying this software out.

One of Audial Music's top audio recording features is its enhanced-speed downloading and recording function, which can record music up to 15 times faster than regular playback via programs like Spotify. The speed at which you convert audio will impact quality, but even at highest fidelity, Audial is far faster than most other converters. Only Switch Audio Converter Plus was quicker. It's also worth noting that Audials can download and convert audiobooks at ten times speed, which is great if you're a big user of the best audiobook services, because audiobooks are regularly ten or more hours in length.

Music is compatible with roughly 40 audio files (not including video files, of which it supports 45 formats) and can quickly convert them to 11 different audio formats. We were impressed with both the audio compatibility and the conversion speed, along with all the extra details and features used to enhance the process and make things easier for the user. It will even convert protected audio files, and has support for stereo and 5.1 audio.

Audials Music review

(Image credit: Audials)

We tested each program in our review with five different video file formats to see if it could extract the audio data. Audials Music passed this test with flying colors, converting every video file we threw at it, including those in M4V, MOV, MP4, MPG and WMV formats. While you can extract audio from videos with free converters like Freemake Audio Converter, it's far slower, and you're severely limited by how much audio you can convert. No such issues with Audials Music.

We emailed Audial's support representatives, and they responded to our inquiry within 24 hours. This prompt response is a sign of a quality support team. The online FAQs section is divided into sections to help you find answers to your questions quickly. Audials works on Windows 10, 8 and 7 platforms, but is currently not compatible with Mac.

Another slight downside here is that Audials Music is one of the more expensive audio converters, clocking in at $40 for the download. It's well worth the price, as long as you use it regularly and take advantage of the myriad features on offer. Most users are unlikely to use everything and, to be honest, we were initially overwhelmed by just how much is here.

Should you buy Audials Music?

If you regularly use audio conversion tech, the answer is a resounding 'Yes'. Audials Music has one of the most comprehensive feature sets of all the audio software we have reviewed, and it has the best streamed-content recorder. The user interface can take a little time to get used to, but that is to be expected with the number of available tools. This shouldn't deter beginners, however, as it's intuitive and will make sense to anyone familiar with other video or audio editors. You get what you pay for, however, as Audials Music is the most expensive audio converter software we considered. Despite this, it represents excellent value, as long as you're a regular user who intends to make full use of all the features it packs in.

Billy Bommer

Billy Bommer is a former Top Ten Reviews writer who now works as a technical advisor at Best Buy. He's a keen sax player, and lives in Utah. Billy also has a BS from Weber State University in Communications and Media Studies. His areas of expertise are diverse, and he has a particular passion for AV and audio tech.