Active Ear vs Sonofield Ear Trainer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Active Ear
Develop your musical ear with a comprehensive ear training app. It offers various exercises to help musicians identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions. Customize your learning with practice modes and test your knowledge with quizzes.
- Pitch Recognition
- Interval Training
- Chord Quality Identification
- Bassline Training
- Progression Training
- Chord Inversions
- Customizable Practice Mode
- Quiz Mode
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Active Ear is for musicians of all skill levels and instrument types. With dozens of exercises ranging from beginner to advanced, Active Ear focuses on teaching you to identify pitches, intervals, chords, and progressions using only your Ear. The Practice Mode of the app allows you to customize the challenges to focus only on areas you're interested in improving. Once you're confident with the Practice Mode, you test yourself in the Quiz Mode of the app to see how well you understand the concepts. Active Ear Comes with six Ear Training Programs: - Pitch Recognition - Interval Training - Chord Quality - Bassline Training - Progression Training - Chord Inversions
Sonofield Ear Trainer
This app helps musicians develop their ear by focusing on the feeling of individual notes within a key, rather than traditional interval training. It uses sustained drones and offers various modes like identifying scale degrees, melodies, and singing exercises. The app adapts to your skill level with an intuitive interface and progression path.
- Feeling-based note recognition
- Scale degree identification
- Melody recognition training
- Singing exercises
- Hands-free training mode
- Interactive exploration instrument
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Sonofield Ear Trainer (SET) is a revolutionary ear training app designed to help you intuitively play the melodies you hear and imagine. Instead of relying on traditional old methods like intervals, SET focuses on helping you feel the unique character of each note within a key. By using sustained drones to create a tonal foundation, you’ll learn to recognize scale degrees based on their *feeling*, not just how they sound. The app offers a variety of ways to train: * Degrees Mode - Identify individual notes against the drone by feeling. The heart of SET. * Melody Mode - Identify short melodic phrases, preparing you for real music. * Voice Mode - Sing the requested scale degree into your microphone. * Pocket Mode - Hands-free training for when you're on the go. * Free Play - An interactive instrument for exploration. With its intuitive, color-coded interface, thoughtfully designed progression path, and multiple difficulty levels, SET adapts to your skill level while keeping practice engaging. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced musician, SET is your guide to unlocking true musical fluency through intuitive, feeling-based ear training. No ads or forced payments. The free version contains full foundations for feeling-based ear training. Download the ear training app now!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Active Ear at none against Sonofield Ear Trainer's 5. Sonofield Ear Trainer's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs monthly) and rating (4.9 vs 4.7). On price, review sentiment, ads and device support 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. Sonofield Ear Trainer sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Active Ear asks for nothing beyond the download.
Sonofield Ear Trainer holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sonofield Ear Trainer has 376 ratings behind it against 50, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 94% of Active Ear's written reviews are positive against 89% of Sonofield Ear Trainer's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Active Ear ships an update monthly, Sonofield Ear Trainer every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on June 10, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Active Ear | Sonofield Ear Trainer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (50 ratings) | 4.9 (376 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 93.8% of reviews — better | 88.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 50 | 376 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 105 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | MCPHERSON'S MUSIC LLC | Sonofield Ear Trainer Education Ltd. |
Customer experience
Active Ear
Sonofield Ear Trainer
Bugs and requests
Active Ear
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Sonofield Ear Trainer
Reported bugs
1 issue- None reported
Requested features
5 requests- Option to switch between 12TET and just intonation
- Ability to reduce octave range
- Incorporate more timbre options for drone and notes
- Tracking and visualization of progress and learned skills
- Add interactive tutorial for level 1
In-app purchases
Active Ear
No in-app purchases
Sonofield Ear Trainer
- Lifetime Pro$14.99
- Lifetime Pro$17.99
- Lifetime Pro2 variants$19.99
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- Lifetime Pro$24.99
Questions
Is Active Ear free?
Is Sonofield Ear Trainer free?
Which has better reviews, Active Ear or Sonofield Ear Trainer?
Do Active Ear or Sonofield Ear Trainer have ads?
Which is updated more often, Active Ear or Sonofield Ear Trainer?
Other comparisons
