EQ Ear is a training game, not a hearing test and not a qualification. These terms set out what you can expect from it, and what it expects from you.
By downloading, installing or using EQ Ear (“the App”), you agree to these Terms of Use. If you do not agree, please do not use the App. If you are using it on behalf of someone else — a student, a class, an employee — you confirm you have the authority to accept these terms for them.
These terms sit alongside the Privacy Policy and Apple’s own Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement, which applies to every app distributed through the App Store.
EQ Ear is an ear-training game. It plays short pieces of music and asks you to identify what you heard, then scores how close you were. Practice is built around the four frequency bands used throughout the App: Bass (20–250 Hz), Low-mid (250–500 Hz), High-mid (500 Hz–4 kHz) and Treble (4–20 kHz). There are five question types:
Progress is organised into worlds and lessons, with passes, streaks, XP and ranks. There is also Survival, an endless run of mixed questions that ends on the first mistake and keeps a weekly best score. Difficulty tightens as you advance: the tolerance for a correct answer narrows, and later lessons combine more question types.
EQ Ear is a training and practice tool only. It is:
Scores, accuracy percentages, grades, star ratings and ranks shown in the App are indicative game feedback, produced by comparing your answer to the values we chose when authoring that lesson. They are not measurements of your hearing and carry no professional standing. Frequency band boundaries in the App are simplified for teaching; they are a convention, not a standard.
EQ Ear is used with headphones, often for extended sessions. Protect your hearing. Set the volume so that the music is comfortable and you could still hold a conversation over it, and never raise it to make a difficult band easier to hear — if you cannot hear a difference at a moderate level, that is information about the lesson, not a reason to turn it up.
Take a break every twenty minutes or so. Prolonged exposure to loud audio can cause permanent hearing damage, and listening fatigue also makes your answers worse, so long loud sessions are counterproductive in both directions. On iOS you can cap output in Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Headphone Safety, and we recommend leaving that enabled. You are responsible for the volume at which you choose to listen.
You may use the App if you are able to form a binding contract where you live, or if you have the consent of a parent or guardian.
The App has no accounts and no sign-in of any kind. Your progress is stored on your device, which means it is yours alone — and also that deleting the App deletes it. Keep an iPhone backup if that matters to you. The App does send anonymous usage statistics, which you can turn off in Settings; see the Privacy Policy.
Passes, XP, stars, streaks and ranks are game mechanics, not property. They:
Spending a pass, breaking a streak, or losing progress because you changed or reset your device does not entitle you to a refund or to compensation. Because progress is stored only on your device, we cannot recover it for you.
EQ Ear Plus is an optional auto-renewing subscription that removes the free tier’s limits. It is offered on monthly and yearly terms; the price for your region is set by Apple and is always shown in the App, in your own currency, before you confirm.
The free tier is a complete trainer, limited by passes and by which worlds are unlocked. A lesson costs one pass, and your passes are topped back up each day. We may change how many passes a day the free tier receives, what they cost to use, and which content is free, as we balance the game. We do not promise that any specific lesson will remain free.
The App and everything in it — the software, the interface design, the EQ Ear name and logo, the lesson structure, the written copy, the icons, and the audio material used for practice — belongs to us or to our licensors and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property law.
You are granted a personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the App on devices you own or control, for your own training. You may not:
Your own progress data is yours. Feedback and suggestions you send us may be used without obligation or compensation, and we appreciate them.
You agree not to:
We may suspend or terminate access if you do any of these.
The App relies on services operated by others — Apple for distribution, payments and subscriptions, Google (Firebase Analytics and Cloud Firestore) for anonymous usage statistics, and RevenueCat for subscription validation. None of them receives anything that identifies you; what each one handles is set out in our Privacy Policy, and their own terms govern their side of it. We are not responsible for outages, changes or failures in those services, though we will do what we reasonably can to work around them.
We aim to keep EQ Ear available and working, but we do not promise uninterrupted service. We may add, change or remove features, worlds, lessons or question types; we may require you to update to a supported version; and we may discontinue support for older operating systems. We may stop offering the App altogether, in which case we will give reasonable notice and stop charging subscriptions.
The App is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. To the fullest extent permitted by law:
Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer protection law where you live. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected.
You may stop using the App at any time and delete it; remember to cancel any subscription separately through Apple. We may suspend or end your access if you materially breach these terms, or if we are required to by law. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability and governing law — continue to apply afterwards.
We may revise these terms. The date at the top reflects the current version. For material changes we will give notice in the App before they take effect. Continuing to use the App after that constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept a change, stop using the App and cancel any subscription.
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Turkey, without regard to conflict of law principles, and the courts of Istanbul have jurisdiction. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory consumer law in your country of residence, or of the right to bring proceedings there.
Questions about these terms can go to the address on our contact page.