I have used Hear for a long time--I started back when it was still called OSS3D. I love the way it makes audio sound through my earphones, and therein lies the problem.

I am so accustomed to it, I don't like listening to audio in my earphones without it. But, it has some very annoying bugs. I have contacted customer support about the problems and they have responded saying that "engineers" are working on them. However, that was months ago. I have been allowed to try the latest beta (which is from September 2008!), and it still has the bugs.

On both machines I have tested it (see * below), the latest beta requires that you are logged in as an admin in order for it to work at all. I follow Apple's recommendations and do my normal work as a standard user and only login as an admin when it is required. Even if you install the app as an admin, it will not process audio unless you are running it from an admin account. This is a security issue that I don't take lightly. The developers are aware of the problem.

The other problem effecting the latest released version (1.0.3) and the beta (1.0.4) is that it simply stops processing audio every five to six days. As mentioned by another reviewer, the only fix is to restart the machine. So, you are forced to restart the machine every five or six days just to keep it working. No amount of killing the daemon, trashing prefs, resetting permissions, or anything else has an effect--you have to restart the machine. The developers are aware of the problem.

If you have never tried this product, leave it alone. Who knows if or when it will ever be fixed. I'm looking for alternatives now, but haven't found a suitable replacement yet.

* I have tested it on:
- Power Mac G5 Dual 2GHz / Mac OS X 10.5.0-10.5.6
- MacBook Pro 15" 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo / Mac OS X 10.5.0-10.5.6