Prosoft Engineering Inc, makers of disc utilities like Drive Genius, has released an audio utility under its JoeSoft brand that works on music playing over your Mac.

JoeSoft is a wholly owned subsidiary of Prosoft “dedicated to developing software that is fun to use and offers unparalleled quality and function”. JoeSoft currently offers titles like Stox, Jax and Klix (stock research, tracking and analysis; video plug-in for iTunes that adds new features to iPods, iPhones, Apple TVs and iTunes; digital picture recovery software).

Hear is not an audio processor in the sense that it changes and rewrites an audio file to affect how it sounds – rather it sits between the audio source on your Mac and the speakers/headphones you are using and modifies the sound that comes out, without processing the file itself, rather like a hardware filter/effects unit on a stereo.

In use, I have to say you are rather spoiled for choice. The six pre-set categories –  Defaults, Effects, Games, Movies and TV, Music and Speech – all contain numerous sub categories meaning you might spend ages trying one after another until you find the one that suits your music, ear and speakers. Further, under the tabs across the top of hear you can go in and further tweak parameters  under General, EQm Mixer, 3D, Ambience, FX, Maximiser, BW, Limiter, Space, Fidelity, Speaker and Sub.

Under General there are sliders for Superbass, DeWoofer, Ambience and Fidelity. These are really just simplified equaliser settings, covering bass, Ambience boosts the midrange and Fidelity seems to influence mostly upper trebles to add detail. There are also a set of check-boxes down the right to enable 3D sound., Extended Space, Extended FX, Extended Fidelity, Ambience, Contour Maximiser, Virtual Subwoofer, Compressor/Limiter, Equaliser and FAT.  At the bottom of General there’s the FX chain, which layers the order in which different parts of the effects are processed.

The Equaliser is nice – if you prefer, you can use the fussy Sliders (10 to 256, up to you but more channels use more CPU power) ) but I prefer the Curve display – just drag the worm graph indicator to boost and subtract frequencies.

The Ambience tabs adds a gentle reverb, while Space pushes different sounds closer and further away from you front to back.

FX is a more aggressive type of surround sound remixing.  It has two controls, Space and Center (sic). Center controls central bass frequencies so you can influence the volume of a sound’s centre – I brought a lot of bass guitar mid-tones came back by boosting this – important for an ex bass player!. Space moves the sound aside from the listener and should be used subtly.

Maximizer lets you adjust the bell shape curve parameters of the low and high contour curve. This doesn’t make much sense to me, but using it you can definitely improve sounds, although pushing the sliders too far is counterproductive.

BW is perhaps the strangest option on offer – it stands for Brainwave Window. Aha, I’ve got it! (just kidding.) This lets you impute some New Agey phase sweeps from one side to the other – more or less of them – into your relaxation music. Yuk! (I meant for the relaxation music.) The presets are Concentration, Light Relaxation, Effective Relaxation and Deep Relaxation. Perhaps this tab should be called What did you do to my song, Ma? instead of BW?

Limiter controls the level of compression – this is something used by radio stations to bring quieter parts of songs up and lower the spikes of louder parts. In other words, it takes away the dynamics – the differences in music between loud and quiet. I left this off (I like dynamics), but it’s worth a try depending on your collection. 

Space enables processing to create a virtual re-sounding frame behind the listener position. Effectively it bounces the sound around multiple times so it returns to the listener from the back. The width of the resounding frame gives a spatialisation effect. It would be particularly effective if you have 3D surround technology plugged into your Mac (like 5.1 speakers), but alert for musical – it will muddy sound.

This effect has two options – Normal emulates sound coming from the back while Wide makes the frame wider and places it closer to the listener

Fidelity is like ‘Aural Exciter’ processing used by studios to add sparkle to vocals and can bring back some nuances in vocals.

Speaker lets you fine tune for your speakers – I have four plugged into my desktop system: a pair of bookshelf Pioneers for quiet, and some lovely Missions when I need more volume, bass and clarity. You can reduce bass resonance, cabinet resonance and accent the mid-range. Under this tab I was fascinated that turning on Phase Invert bought my right speakers to life. I often thought I was going deaf in my right ear and felt guilty about adjusting the balance to get an even left to right stereo field – now I feel much better as my speakers were just out of phase – doh!

Finally there’s Sub, which controls the Sub Bass frequencies, letting your system sound like there’s a very bassy subwoofer plugged in even when there isn’t. (This won’t be very effective using the tiny speakers built into iMacs and laptops.)

If it’s all a bit bewildering, the manual is very well written and explains everything.

Crikey. If this doesn’t do it for audiophiles I don’t know what will.

And that’s just with music – imagine this with games. 

Conclusion thanks to the lack of latency in OS 10, Hear works instantly without any lag so what you do inside Hear is instantly audible. It’s features are outstanding, almost overwhelming. To my ears, Hear’s effects sound better with fairly open and simple music – anything too heavy can quickly sound like it’s over-processed audio slurry.

You need to remember to boot this software whenever you want a serious listening session, but if you are into music and audio, this is pretty sensational software. If you’re not, you could easily get lost amongst it’s functions.

What’s new add a world of audio possibilities to your Mac listening pleasure

What’s great little touches like click on a slider or knob then being able to roll your scroll-wheel to change values really adds to usability, adding precise control you can use without having to stare at your monitor.

What’s not if you listen to a few tracks with JoeSoft on, then turn it off, the music you were formerly happy with sounds all flat and dull …

It doesn’t work over AirTunes via an AirPort Express to a remote stereo.

Needs extra speakers plugged into your Mac to really perform.

Looks 9/10

Usability 8/10

Value for money 9/10

> Joesoft Hear, RRP$80

Description very full-featured audio processing software for listeners

System Mac OS X 10.4/10.5+, Intel or PPC, 256MB+ RAM

Contact JoeSoft, NZ Distributor MacSense NZ Ltd.