LiveOne is an excellent streaming music service that marries the former Slacker Radio’s DJs and curated radio stations with LiveXLive’s live performances. Available on desktops, mobile devices, smart TVs, and the web, the platform has a deep video well, numerous podcasts, and informative channels that can teach you about music history. For these many cool features and more, LiveOne rides high as an Editors’ Choice winner for streaming music.
(Credit: LiveOne/PCMag)
Plans and PricesLiveOne offers three listening plans. Basic is the free tier that delivers 128Kbps audio, a six-song skip limit, and core listening options. The downside? You’re bombarded with audio and banner advertisements. That said, the audio advertisements are fairly palatable since LiveOne has a clock icon at the bottom of the screen that counts down to the next ad break. Typically, you’ll enjoy 20 to 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening before an ad kicks in. Banner ads, on the other hand, are extremely distracting, particularly if you’re navigating LiveOne’s web or app interface.
If the ads become too much to bear, you can eliminate them with the $3.99-per-month Plus plan that boosts the bit rate to 320Kbps and removes the song skip limits. For $9.99 per month, the Premium plan lets you cache playlists and albums for offline listening on mobile devices, and play songs and albums on demand. LiveOne is comparatively cheaper than other premium services, which have adopted a fairly universal $10.99 per month subscription (though Spotify is moving to an $11.99 monthly rate for an indvidual plan in July). On-demand playback is by far the most valuable Premium feature. With Basic and Plus, LiveOne plays stations and tracks based on your selections, but not the exact title you search for. Sure, you’ll eventually hear your favorite songs in a playlist, but you can’t pick and choose them at will unless you have Premium. In addition, LiveOne doesn’t let you record music as you can with SiriusXM Internet Radio (to be fair, few streaming music services do). LiveOne also lacks a family plan for sharing those premium benefits, which is a common subscription tier among streaming music services, including Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Navigating LiveOneLike YouTube Music, LiveOne uses a panel-driven interface to organize its music pages. Across the center of the screen is a scrolling window that features recommended albums, stations, live events, and original shows. South of that are panels for everything LiveOne offers, including videos, new releases, station and artist recommendations, and top stations. That said, LiveOne’s interface is not as clean as YouTube Music’s; the large panels clutter the screen, so it feels like you do far more scrolling and searching than necessary. As mentioned earlier, free users also have massive, highly intrusive ad banners to contend with, further obfuscating your search results. It can be quite tedious to navigate if you don’t subscribe.To better aid you in your search, LiveOne features a menu bar along the top for events, music, video, sports, and your library selections. Within the Events tab you’ll find upcoming live events, highlights, previous events, and related playlists. Music houses a multitude of stations across dozens of genres, including Country, Comedy, R&B, Rock, Electronica, Kids, and News & Talk. The Video tab, unsurprisingly, features all of LiveOne’s original videos, such as artist interviews, vodcasts, and music news. Unlike the blocky panels, however, the drop-down lists in the menu bar are a touch too small for our liking, which makes for annoying navigation. Unique ContentSlacker’s unique content lives on in LiveOne. The Artist DNA stations, for example, are channels hosted by music experts who play the tracks that influenced important artists. Likewise, Sample City highlights the musical snippets that have built popular, contemporary songs. The pair are music history classes that competing services, such as iHeartRadio and Spotify, lack.In addition, LiveOne’s many informative stations are hosted by DJs who make you recall the heyday of traditional over-the-air radio. Red, for example, hosts several music, story, and alternative channels, and offers an effervescent personality and deep music knowledge that beckons you to return.
(Credit: LiveOne/PCMag)
Listening to LiveOneLiveOne has a deep catalog featuring a library of more than 30 million songs, 600 curated listening stations, and 300 podcasts.In addition to its robust music collection, LiveOne carries ABC News, though it no longer has live ESPN Radio. Another cool feature is Slacker Stories, which delivers Bill Murray Stories, Star Wars Stories, and other pop culture tales.Like SiriusXM Internet Radio’s MySXM feature, LiveOne has sliders that you use to fine-tune metrics in the Hosts, Favorite Songs, Popular Songs, and Newer categories. Unlike SiriusXM’s MySXM, LiveOne’s sliders remain the same from station to station; you can’t customize them on a per-station basis. Not all stations have this feature, either. Still, the additional customization options open the door to more tightly crafted personalized stations.As is the norm with these services, clicking the ban icon prevents a song or artist from appearing. Clicking the heart-shaped favorite icon, on the other hand, gives a song greater priority, so LiveOne plays it more frequently. You can also turn the music, sports, and news updates on and off in the account settings menu. Unfortunately, LiveOne lacks lyrics. This is not unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. If you wish to sing along to official lyrics, check out Amazon Music Unlimited.LiveOne streamed crisp, clean audio at 128Kbps and 320Kbps (for the Free and Plus/Premium plans, respectively) in testing over both our home and office network connections. That said, downloaded content plays back at just 60Kbps. Unless you’re an audiophile who cannot live without hi-res audio, LiveOne’s sound quality should be satisfactory. That said, if you demand nothing less than the best audio quality, check out Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Tidal, or Quboz.Video and PodcastsIn 2020, LiveOne acquired PodcastOne to add podcasts to its already robust audio catalog. LiveZone keeps you up to date with weekly music news; Greatest Album Ever digs into the backstory behind iconic artist albums; The Adam Carolla Show features colorful interviews; and The Steve Austin Show has insightful wrestling stories. We thoroughly enjoyed LiveOne’s law and crime podcasts, such as Court Junkie and True Crime All The Time Unsolved, because they recount events and crime scenes like classic radio mysteries from a bygone age.Of course, given its history, LiveOne has streamed pay-per-view concerts. You can find these shows in the Events section and set reminders to keep these shows on your radar. In-person concerts and livestreams are all highly varied events, such as Ladygang’s “Never Forget Your First” podcast tour, Goose’s seasonal tours, and the Music Gives charities. They range in price from $14.99 to hundreds of dollars for numerous extras (like a band meet and greet). LiveOne lets you rewatch a previously purchased show, though this depends on the event. Some pay-per-view events do not have a rewatch option.
(Credit: LiveOne/PCMag)
Verdict: One of the Best Music ServicesLiveOne’s quality streaming audio, on-demand access, excellent channel variety, podcasts, and deep customization options make it an Editors’ Choice winner among premium streaming audio services. A few minor complaints aside, it’s a well-rounded package that stands strong in the competitive landscape.
Cons
Cumbersome interface
Lacks hi-res audio
No family plan
Lacks lyrics
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The Bottom Line
LiveOne shines as one of the most well-rounded streaming music services on the market, featuring live music streams, highly entertaining channels, and numerous podcasts.
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