Why we like Soundike
Great site design and a low minimum top up amount.
The scoop on Soundike
Soundike have a crisp, rustic theme to their site, which gives it a classy and vintage feel. The home page is very well structured, with enough information to be helpful but not too busy and confusing. It is updated regularly with Best Sellers, New Releases, Charts and loads more. Soundike has been running since 2004 and since that time, have built themselves a respectable music library. The site offers exceptional customer service, any emails sent to them will be responded to by the end of that day, if not sooner! Our verdict: A fresh, clear site that makes buying mp3s painless. They may not be the cheapest, but their site is by far the best and their low top-up amount makes music available to a lot more people.
Signing Up
Registering up with Soundike is amazingly simple. All you need is your email address; password and fill out one captcha box and you're done. After you have registered, which is free to do, Soundike give you 30¢ credit. This is enough to buy two songs from their site. So it's like a free trial of their service. Before you can buy mp3s though, you need to add money to your account. This again, is a very simple and quick process. Upon sign up, you can opt out receiving their newsletter emails. However, these are quite good little emails that get delivered to you once a month. They have all the latest releases in and you can see all releases for today, the last week and the last month.
Payment Options and Offers
Soundike accept Visa or MasterCard as payment methods. In their 'Paying for Services' section, they claim to offer Webmoney, Yandex Money, Moneybookers, E-Gold, Neteller, top-up cards 'Music card' or by SMS. We cannot see this on the site anywhere, least of all on the 'refill balance' page! The minimum top up to your Soundike account is $15.00 - the same as
MP3va, and a lot less than any other mp3 download site. This amount applies everytime you want to top up your account. Soundike do have some good bonuses;
Top up $30.00 to get $10.00 for free or top up $50.00 to get $35.00 for free.
Special deals, updates and all other site offers can be seen on our
Offers page.
Prices
Prices on Soundike are fixed at 15¢ each. Album prices vary though, depending on the number of tracks on it. They do offer an album discount of 20%, so if there are more than a few songs on an album you like, it's worth buying the whole album rather than just the tracks.
Music Selection
Soundike has over 1,220,830 tracks on their database, not as large as others but they are extremely up-to-date. The only part of their site that is a bit of a let down is the charts; these are old, even though today's date is always displayed at the top of the chart. As with many mp3 sites, they will find any track they don't have listed for you. Soundike allow you to listen to any track before you buy it, something we have come to expect from all mp3 download sites now. However, the preview is low quality, the actual download will be much better.
Search Facility
Soundike's search facility is predictive, which is a very helpful feature. Results are displayed clearly with artist, releases then tracks so you should be able to find what you want here. There is lots of album art which makes the site easier to use and at the bottom of every search they offer a 'Music Request' where you can request any song that hasn't been found in their search and they will do their best to find it for you.
Getting Tracks to your PC
On Soundike, there are two ways to download your music. You can hit 'Buy Now' or 'Add to Cart'. If you chose to 'Buy Now', you need to click on the 'Buy Now' icon. This will then turn into a green arrow. You balance will also be reduced by the amount the track cost. You now need to get the mp3 onto your pc, as it is currently in your account on the site. To get it onto your pc, click the green arrow. The song will automatically download to wherever you have selected your downloads to be saved. This is usually defaulted to 'My Music' or in 'My Downloads' on your pc, but this can be changed in your browser options. You can then use them as you would any other mp3 on your pc. They can be transferred to mp3 players, phones etc. If you chose to 'Add to Cart', your mp3 will be added to your basket which can be accessed at the top of the site. You can then go into your basket when you are finished and select which ones you want to buy. These are then downloaded in the same way as the 'Buy Now' mp3s. Everything you download stays on your account, so if you ever need to re-download a track, you can do so without having to re-purchase it. Click here to see how to get them onto iTunes:
iTunes Help Guide.
File formats & Bitrates
Soundike only offer their customers mp3s. This means they can be played on just about anything you can think of; phones, laptops, and of course, mp3 players. They are all DRM free so you can play your tracks where you want and can keep as many copies as you need to. Song quality ranges from 128-320 kbps. 128 kbps is quite low so check the quality of the song you are downloading before you make the purchase. See full descriptions of:
DRM Free Music and
Quality
Will it work with my iPod/iTunes?
Yes it will. All songs downloaded from Soundike will work with your iPod, iTunes, iPhone and anything else you can think of. They will also work with other Media Players and devices like Windows Media Player, Winamp etc. Read how to put your downloads into your iTunes Library here:
iTunes Guide.
Just music?
Yes, just music, mp3s, tunes, songs and tracks.
Bonuses & Extras
Soundike do not offer any bonuses like other sites, they have the top-up bonuses mentioned above and on our
Offers page. There are no offers for registering with them, but their top-up offers are to be taken advantage of, the 40% and 100% free credit is something other sites cannot give.
