PURE  PROSOFT SUPPORT As Gordon noted, we are working on a new version of Hear that will be available in the coming months.

In the coming years I think.

Hear is not compatible with Front Row and not compatible with Snow Leopard's Quicktime X.  
(Version 1.0.3)

MACACCRO  When I bought Hear several months ago, it worked just fine. But over the lasts months, with Apple updates, it started not to work with many applications...

And there's no update from Joesoft for more than one year now! This is not serious. And they still continue to sell it on their website!

It is sad, because it is a beautifully designed products, but it just doesn't work anymore. :( Hopefully, there's some companies that put a real development on their product and take really care of their consumers. Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba Software is the alternative and it really works the way you want!

Goodbye Joesoft! It was (almost) a pleasure using (and paying!) your software.

f.  
(Version 1.0.3)

MACLOVER1.1  It only works with iTunes... and I need this to fix bad sound watching Youtube etc in my browser rather than fix the sound of my already flawless iTunes music.. and iWOW for iTunes is much better anyway, but unfortunately only an iTunes plugin.  
(Version 1.0.3)

MACLOVER1.1  Their site say it is Leopard compatible LoL lolololololololol Give me a break.. in all honesty this is a piece of garbage... actually it does not work at all and has not for a few OX updates way before Snow.  
(Version 1.0.3)

PURE  Still waiting since over one year for an UPDATE that fix the FRONT ROW Issue.  
(Version 1.0.3)

PISSNAROUND  Hear seems to be the only audio enhancer that didn't break with Snow Leopard. I have both iWow and AstoundStereo Enhancer. Both broke with 10.6  
(Version 1.0.3)

BELA  Anyone who has attended live performances knows full well that recorded music, even when expertly laid down and listened to on high end playback, is not the real deal. Many of us know what music is supposed to sound like live. Some of us who have worked in recording studios have a good idea what studio produced recordings are supposed to sound like. Unfortunately, less that optimal playback equipment and lossy compression of mp3 copies markedly limit the fidelity of any recording.

Hear helps generate more realistic sound from recordings. Used correctly it will compensate for deficiencies anywhere in the playback chain. Like any powerful tool, it is fully capable of wreaking havoc when misused. If you aren't interested in reading the manual and learning how to use the program, I cannot recommend that you buy it, this is not a one size fits all plugin. (If you don't want or need the flexibility and power of Hear, consider the Xmod, Astound Stereo Expander or SRS iWow, although the latter is only available for Mac as an iTunes plugin). But if you can devote a hour or so to learning what it is that Hear does, if you have a good idea of the sound you want for a given music genre and you enjoy tweaking, get this software.

I use Hear for all computer sources when played through attached speakers (Harman Kardon Soundsticks in my case). I have a few custom presets (jazz, pop, classical, small and large ensemble) all of which I set up using the stock Hear presets as starting points. This took very little time once the interface and processing was understood. Again, this is not a one size fits all process. Your play back system, musical tastes and conception of an ideal sound will differ from most anyone else's. Hear easily accommodates those differences.

On a dedicated audio system of good quality Hear has less to offer, but with poorly recorded music (especially older analog-digital remasters) or mp3 files it still can be a big help.

The interface is lovely. The controls are easy to use. From the general tab the basic effects can be adjusted, any individual processors can be toggled off and on, the processing chain can be reordered. Each individual processor is given a separate tab for its specific adjustments. There are a whole raft of presets for music, movies, speech, games and special effect. Some of these may work for you without modification, any of them can be modified and saved as a new preset. I suggest creating a personal folder in the ~/Library/Preferences/Hear/Hear Presets/ to hold your modifications.

My only complaint is that the manual doesn't go into enough detail about how each control actually works. A description of what exactly each one does to the sound be a big help. This information can be learned by trial and error and so is certainly not a deal breaker. A description of the installed components would also be welcome.

I have been using Hear on a MacPro and MacBook daily for the best part of a year and it has been rock solid. I have not uncovered any significant bugs and no slow down of the machines. In fact, I'm frequently using Photoshop and Final Cut while Hear is running with absolutely no hit on the performance of these processor intensive programs. These computers are. of course. relatively new Intel machines with at least a dual-core processor. I have no experience with Hear on PowerPC machines.  
(Version 1.0.3)

RY.MA  Sound is unchanged. For what is Hear good?  
(Version 1.0.3)

ZX  Hear is not working anymore!  
(Version 1.0.3)

ZX  After the latest Apple software updates...We are back to the 'coreaudiod not responding' error!!!

Please fix it.  
(Version 1.0.3)

PIRX  Yes, definitely a memory leak. What a pity, such a great app.  
(Version 1.0.3)

CHIEFTED  I am very happy....

That I didn't purchase this app.

There is a memory leak somewhere with this application. Forget

about getting a decent stream, with this application installed I ran

into constant buffer issues (and I was using it on my computer

at work with a T3 connection, so its not the connections speed, nor

is it anything with the corp network).

Its over priced, distorts sounds big time and was a pain to uninstall. Rebooting

the computer just to install this....please.

Stay away from this one folks  
(Version 1.0.3)

DRLEX  People who expect to flip the switch on this software and get incredible sound out of any audio set-up, expect magic. Hear is loaded with all kinds of presets which are basically worthless. To get good sound out of a particular system, one needs to tweak the necessary settings to the correct parameters. Now, this is the main problem with Hear: you need to be kind of an audio engineer to do this. You may be lucky with one of the presets, but most of those use way too exaggerated settings just to showcase what Hear can do. The better the audio system, the closer each setting should be to 'zero' or 'neutral'.

I know which settings to tweak in order to make a $5 headset sound like a Sennheiser, or get less crummy sound out of the tinny speakers in my MacBook Pro. But the 'average Joe' has no clue which of the 100+ settings to tweak in order to counteract the 10+ mysterious shortcomings of his/her particular system. Maybe some kind of comprehensive guide should be supplied which explains how each particular setting can be used to counteract a particular shortcoming of a sound system, and which settings are just pure 'ear-candy'.

Since I have learnt how to use it, Hear has become almost essential for me. Unfortunately my major gripe with this program is that it's riddled with bugs.

First of all, Hear has a memory leak. It will increase the memory usage of each and every application that plays sounds, each time a new sound is loaded or played. Eventually this will make the program crash, after slowing down your Mac to a crawl due to swapping. For instance, Audacity 1.3.6 will quickly consume all of the 3GB of RAM on my machine when loading a large sound and pressing the 'play' button a few times.

Next, the controls will stop working at random moments, including the 'on/off' button. In such cases, the only way to regain control of Hear is either logging out, or manually killing the Hear Daemon and closing and re-opening all sound-related programs.

Finally, when changing presets or settings, the previous settings are still used when a new QuickTime movie is loaded afterwards. The Hear interface must be quit and re-opened to 'fixate' the new settings.

The 'average Joe' will not realise that any of the 3 above behaviours are bugs, except maybe the first one. The second and third bug will only make it seem like Hear doesn't work at all. If anyone at JoeSoft reads this, I highly recommend fixing those bugs as soon as possible. I really love this program but it will only be a matter of time before my frustration due to those bugs piles up so high that I start to hate it.  
(Version 1.0.3)

JEFF H.  I really like this program, well, I should say that I like it on my Mini with a simple 2.1 speaker setup.

I mostly watch movies and TV on this second computer and listen to no music on it at all.

So I can't comment on how it makes music sound better/worse.

But what I CAN comment on is the huge improvements its made on movies/TV.

I mean pretty dramatic!

I used one of the movie presets, "Drama" I believe, and then tweaked it.

I have an older set of Monsoon 701's so the sound produced by them was pretty good and tended to be transparent anyway, but the 3D effects of Hear were great! It ALMOST sounded like there were surround speakers. It DEFINITELY sounded like there was a center dialogue speaker.

I tweaked Hear to seem more spacious and it was very impressive!

But just for giggles I put Hear on my G5 that has Logitech Z5500 digital speakers. The Z5500 speakers didn't need anything to make them sound good, to me they are the most impressive computer speakers that I have heard. But I figured what-the-heck and installed Hear anyway.

IT SOUNDED JUST AWFUL!

I lived with it for around 3 minutes and AppZapped it!

I was very happy to see that after zapping Hear and a restart, everything on my G5 was back to normal and my Z5500's sounded great again.

I guess it really depends on your setup and needs, but I recommend Hear, sorta'...  
(Version 1.0.3)

XENOPHILE  I will echo Esperidion's observation that Hear yields over-processed sounds. For those interested in listening to music that is faithful to the original intent of the recording artist, Hear is worse than useless. It's also a resource hog on my Power Mac G4 dual 1.42 GHz system.

Hear did enhance the movie watching experience on my system (stereo, not surround), giving crystal clear voices and crushing special effects sounds, all with a more spatial aspect, as if the soundstage was larger than my two-speaker stereo system, but smaller than a full surround sound system. I'd certainly recommend trying out Hear, but given my setup I figure I'll pass on it and put the $50 towards a true surround sound system.

I didn't use Hear very long, but it was stable as far as I could tell.  
(Version 1.0.3)

ESPIRIDION  I've used Hear for a couple of months now. From the start, I realized that it was unusable for listening to music since it yields over-processed sounds. I have tried presets as well as my own settings. My settings were an improvement over the presets, but I decided not to waste time creating separate settings for each song I hear.

As an effect it's an interesting novelty. Some people may like this, but I don't.

Still, as an effect it may be interesting with different games, videos and movies. Unfortunately it does not work with VLC 0.9.4, under OS X 10.5.5. I don't know if it's a general problem or just my system. It was also not working with the previous VLC version.  
(Version 1.0.3)

PISSNAROUND  Apfelz, thank you for letting us know this doesn't work. Does make me wonder what we are all listening to however.  
(Version 1.0.3)

PURE  I bought this program and I love it. The music sounds much much better, richer, warmer now on my Mac Mini, and the bass is fantastic.

You can try a Demo and play with it, as I do. I spend several days too get the right settings for me, but now I am fully satisfied with this incredible sound that comes from my Mac. Ok, I use Hear in combination with good Sennheiser Headphones, maybe a difference to normal or cheap Speakers, Headphones.

I have tested it with several iTunes Versions and it works perfect for me.

To get a wonderful sound with Hear try to disable all functions first, then try one to another.

I move the Superbass Slider to 80%, the Fidelity Slider to 15% and have enabled the Extended Fidelity. Then I set the Maximizer Sliders (High and Low Contour) both to 50. - No other settings -

With Hear I cannot only listen enhanced Music with iTunes, I can use it with all other Applications like DVD Player, EyeTv and ...

What I miss is the Support for Front Row. I hope their will be soon a new Release, that fix this issue.

When People wrote here that this program is crap I think there is somthing wrong with there Mac, or they have installed an application that collide with Hear.

Give Hear a try and load the Demo, it is worth.  
(Version 1.0.3)

APFELZ  1. I waited months(!) before I wrote my comment :-(

2. I tested it on 3(!) different Macs with the same problem :-(

3. It is no open source or freeware it is an very expensive tool that does not work :-(

Roundup: I defenestrated the money I wish I spended for a homeless guy - would have been a better investment…

Sorry…  
(Version 1.0.3)

APFELZ  I have paid 50 bucks for an app that does not work any more!

So I will use SRSiWOW - that works - without restarting my Mac every time!  
(Version 1.0.3)

PISSNAROUND  oddly enough, a restart fixed the problem. of course the problem showed up after a restart. it seems to me, having to restart the mac on occasion to get something to work for awhile doesn't seem quite right. :o)  
(Version 1.0.3)

PISSNAROUND  Hear 1.03 seems to have stopped working entirely with Leopard 10.5.5, iTunes 8 and Quicktime 7.5.5 installed.  
(Version 1.0.3)

DREMWKR  I cannot in good faith recommend this product as it is now. In fact I say: STAY AWAY! After I loaded Hear (after paying for it) I wanted to see what it would do for my favorite game, World of Warcraft. After all, Hear is advertised to improve your gaming experience. The game hung the first time I tried launching it, the 2nd time it crashed it on startup. Since the problem started directly after loading Hear, I used AppDelete to do as complete as possible uninstall, still WoW crashed. I next tried doing a clean install of Leopard, just carrying over the system settings. WoW still crashed. Skype among others also I noticed were not working. The JoeSoft website was no help at all. After reading the review comments, I deleted the audio plug-in noted below. After that everything worked fine.

It seems that JoeSoft did not test their product with WoW 2.43 and Leopard 10.55. Not to mention Skype, etc. (Or knew and let it go). Since this thing is meant to work with gaming, and it doesn't with the most popular one on the planet raises profound questions about the value and stability (of what it is supposed to work with) of the software, if not ethical questions of its lavish advertising. If anyone at JoeSoft actually reads this (and they should-its FREE direct user feedback) I challenge them to post a developer response in this review section.  
(Version 1.0.3)

O5220803  Sadly, Hear and iWow tend to over process, iTunes input, while VL remains totally clean! So YOU make the choice!   
(Version 1.0.3)

O5220803  For the general listener Hear's "Effects-Hp-ambience-S" is quite good for general listening! Enjoy!  
(Version 1.0.3)

O5220803  A truly superb application. It requires quite a bit of experimentation to master its diversity of settings for your listening requirements. However, once you get there, HEAR's reproductive qualities are excellent.   
(Version 1.0.3)

LONGBOY  I have to apologize to the author and to other readers for my previous comment. It turns out that the annoying quaver/vibrato is absolutely _NOT_ CAUSED BY "HEAR"!

I give Hear five stars. And not because I'm trying to make it up to the author for shafting him. I paid full price and it's worth every penny.  
(Version 1.0.3)

LONGBOY  Hear introduces an annoying, vibrato-like quaver into iTunes playback on my '07 iMac G5. So, I've stopped using it. But it's so good that I paid for it and used it for *months,* even though I had to endure that added vibrato.

Abstracting away from the vibrato, I'd give Hear five stars.

Yes, I also use OSS or iWOW, as the mood and type of music strike me.  
(Version 1.0.3)

M-RICK  For sure i will not buy Hear ! i have downloaded it yesterday afternoon to give it a try, so ok it corrects well the sound, no doubt.

But tonight i spent 1 H to figure out why i couldn't use Skype anymore ! Deleted pref and everything, but just for nothing ! No chat software, nor imovie, nor Photo Booth (strange it doesn't use sound ...) nor any other software using sound or video output were able to launch ! Until I restared with the extensions disabled and they worked ! I removed everything belonging to Hear and restarted and ho miracle everything was working back ! It was the Hear.plugin stored in the /library/Audio/HAL folder that was conflicting.

Hey guys, check your softwares before releasing them !  
(Version 1.0.3)

NEUROJIMMY  Excellent, goes beyond SRS iWow  
(Version 1.0.3)

BDOBBS  Hear does beautiful things to the sound that comes out of my MBP.

I'm an amateur audiophile, but I'm no purist, and as far as I'm concerned, Hear is a fantastic app. It makes listening to music and watching movies much more enjoyable.

I mostly listen to blues, hip-hop and electronic music.

At work I plug my laptop into an auxiliary port on an Aiwa stereo, and it sounds GREAT. At home I Toslink to some Logitech Z-680s, and it really wows. The sound is much richer and fuller. I lack the vocabulary to describe in detail these changes, but I know they sound amazing.

The best feature I've found so far, is that you can individually control the volume of each application on your mac! it's FANTASTIC!

The interface is beautiful (Great icons!), but utterly un mac-like. Kind of frustrating.

Totally unnecessary, but also really badass. I'd recommend it.  
(Version 1.0.3)

JEFF H.  I would never review software that I haven't tried, and thankfully I have a nice set of 5.1 Logitech digitals, so maybe this wouldn't be needed, but...

been reading some nasty stuff about this app elsewhere on the www. Conflicts with Skype, system crashes, etc...

Please don't jump on me...these are only things I've been reading.

Have there been many experiences like this?

Some reviews seem glowing, others seem neutral.  
(Version 1.0.2)

IGREG  I uninstalled Hear, using the uninstall feature in Hear menu and now I am getting obvious distortion in my iTunes.

I installed the full paid version.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PASPRO  There seems to be a conflict between the current version of Hear (1.0.2) and the Skype client on Mac (2.7.0.330). When Hear is running and I make a phone call with Skype, it rings for two or three times and then Skype crashes. Similarly, if I receive a phone call then after a few seconds Skype crashes. I have been unable to make or receive a phone call with Hear 1.0.2 but I had no such problem with any of the previous versions. When I uninstalled the application from my Mac Skype started working without any problems.  
(Version 1.0.2)

ELEGRAPHY  Demo mood is not selectable.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PISSNAROUND  I suppose I should review this now. Obviously it is the best sound enhancement available for Macs available. It will dramatically improve one's sound overall.

One note of caution or really more a hint. Because audio sources vary in quality dramatically. One can end up trying to endless adjust things almost on a file by file basis. Try and find one or two that work and leave it be.  
(Version 1.0.2)

PISSNAROUND  All issues seem to have been fixed. Now I'm a happy guy.  
(Version 1.0.2)

GORDON BELL  Gordon from Prosoft here,

We're looking into this and it does look to be something with Activity Monitor, as similar apps are seeing the same thing- There is a lot of discussion no this on developer pages,etc..

The important thing to note is that it's not hung. It looks as if Activity Monitor is simply reporting it as "Not Responding". Of course, if you hear that Hear is working (making your audio sound better,etc) then it is definitely responding, no matter what Activity Monitor is saying...

Basically, it looks like Activity Monitor has it's hands over its ears, saying, "I can't hear you! I can't hear you! Blah blah blah...", when in reality, it's working fine, no reason to be alarmed :-) We just need to find out why Activity Monitor is acting that way and reporting this incorrectly..

Nonetheless, we are working with developer relations at Apple to get to the root of the issue so that it reports correctly.. Hopefully we'll see that fix very soon-

Cheers,

Gordon from Prosoft..  
(Version 1.0.1)

PISSNAROUND  As far as the hung processes. It seems to be a quirk of Activity Monitor. If checked with something like Peek-A-Boo, they don't show as hung. And being nothing is affected,i.e., everything runs, and Hear isn't the only program where those processes show as hung. Are plenty of reports of coreaudiod showing as hung since at least Tiger for example.

just my thoughts  
(Version 1.0.1)

ROSENKRIEGER  The previous version already had a problem on Leopard 10.5.2 - UserAgent will hang if Hear is running.

Now with 10.5.3 the UserAgent hangs AND the coreaudiod also shows up red in the activity monitor.

This is a great app I would buy - but with these two problems I am not willing to shell out any money.   
(Version 1.0.1)

MDELFS  Amazing software--it cleans up any audio coming out of your Mac and you won't believe the difference of the before and after. At least try the demo and prepare to be amazed. Love it, 5 stars across the board. I wish this tool was actually part of the operating system.  
(Version 1.0.1)

PETERVV  Gives great result with minimum effort! Not worth trying on very small loudspeakers, but the result is quite impressive on your home stereo.

I will only regret some distortion on some instruments (like piano), that occur if you dont change the settings depending on the type of music…

Suggestion : get iTunes type of music on the fly and then change the settings accordingly…

A very good buy!  
(Version 1.0.1)

GRAJEK  Conflict with Skype! Buuuuuu  
(Version 1.0.1)

EASER  How is this significantly different from OSS 3D, which has been around for a number of years and has a remarkably similar interface design? And which is $20 cheaper?  
(Version 1.0.1)

DJEFIS  This software is indispensable to change the quality of my music. The best one that I know at the moment, 50$ are not spent badly if you have the Bose!  
(Version 1.0.1)

FARIBORZ  There's only one adjective to describe this utility: "AMAZING"! Once you install it on your computer you won't believe your ears! It has hundreds of options for all tastes and having the possibility of upgrading from iWow makes it a real steal. Try it and you will not regret. Fariborz AMIRSHAHI - Verona (Italy)  
(Version 1.0.1)

MARKOH  $49.95??!!!!???????? BUUUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

$29.95 sounds more like a reasonable price. Plus... a lot less people would actually pirate this interesting app.  
(Version 1.0.1)

HOLYPOLY  Version 1.0.1 has been released today, and I'm certain that the developer does everything possible to straighten out any bugs, but it still crashes EyeTV. Again, I had to eradicate Hear from my system to bring EyeTV back to life.

Well, there's always hope...  
(Version 1.0)

EOSOFFICE  I´ll give it 5/5 in most categories because it really enhances my itunes experience. I have a logitech speaker set with subwoofer but it´s not a very good speaker system and even with tweaking the itunes eq it sounded dull and the bass was always way too much. With Hear my stuff sounds really better. A lil like I bought me a new pair of good speakers.

Good for mp3 dj´s too I guess because the tweaking range looks quite impressive but maybe that is not my field and I leave that up to someone else.

I dont care if it´s former OSS 3D, I like it sort of and it´s a 1.0 in a new pair of shoes I guess. It could be a little cheaper but the sound tweak ability is thnx and they should have sold this thing to apple right away.

And I guess the real value depends on the hooked up speakers and the usage.  
(Version 1.0)

HOLYPOLY  There'll be a special upgrade price for owners of OSS 3D - look here:

http://subband.com/  
(Version 1.0)

ME2  OK: it looks like HEAR is OSS 3D released by JoeSoft.

That is why the two look alike.

FYI Only  
(Version 1.0)

DA-LA  Unfortunately I have to agree with MSWWSM that the most useful feature in this software is the Uninstall function.

I downloaded Hear to check out if it could improve the often poor audio coming from various video sources. (Movies played in VLC, YouTube clips etc.)

My set up consists of an external MOTU Ultralite soundcard, which is hooked up to a pair of Tannoy studio monitors.

It seems like Hear doesn't like the external card at all. Hear remains inactive when the MOTU is selected for audio output and the computer throws a fit, with either audio drop-outs or the spinning beachball of death, when I try to access the Sound System Preferences or the Audio MIDI setup utility.

As for the actual sound quality of Hear, I can't say as I didn't get it to work.  
(Version 1.0)

ME2  Wow, what a great sound. I pulled the hear-plugin to the desktop and restarted useragent and all is well. But, can I assume doing so my program doesn't work anymore? Seems to still be working.

Thanks for a great program and please continue working on it.  
(Version 1.0)

MSWWSM  I'm giving this a main rating and stability rating of 2 just because the uninstall feature works without a hitch. And, man, are you gonna need it.

All the basic and music presets are so destructive they make me want to cry. The only gimmick preset that even sounds remote like what it's simulating is Phone Line.

I can't use my Duet directly with my MacBook Air, no FireWire, so it has to stay on another Mac. I figured if it's not that stunning Apogee sound, maybe a software product could get me similar results as the Creative Xpod without the taking up the USB port.

The Xpod is so much closer to the Duet than this Hear software, you wouldn't believe. This is hideous. I'm not trying to be mean, but does anyone who developed this software know the first thing about audio. God, it's awful. It makes all your audio sound likes it's coming through two tin cans attached by a string, except soup-can hi-fi has better clarity and presence.

Avoid at all costs. For $30 more, the Xpod is *vastly* superior. What you want is a Duet, but if you don't want to spend $500 on an audio processor -- speaking of which, if you don't want to spend the money, don *ever* listen to a Duet in action -- or you have a USB-only on your MB Air, go for the Creative Xpod. Which will also take an external source. Which you can also use completely independent of your Mac with an optional power adapter, an optional power adapter being any USB iPod AC adapter -- you should have a spare lying around by now, or if not, you can just swap it out if you need for the iPod -- or any USB powered hub. Have and old USB 1.1 powered hub? Use that.

I'd day, for even audiophile listeners the Duet restores compressed music to essentially it's old CD-quality self. The Xpod is a great improvement, and if you fiddle with the intensity of frequency enhancer, the "crystallizer", you get even better. Hear is just flat destructive. Effectively knocks about 70 - 100 kpbs off your compression rate.  
(Version 1.0)

PAT320  I've tested it, too much options IMHO.

Who want to spend time on a audio enhancer?

And 49$ is really too much…………  
(Version 1.0)

VENTBLEU  What is the differnce with Oss 3D ?  
(Version 1.0)

JWDRISKELL  Hear is a great app, working within a small footprint and pulling a very low CPU-load. Unfortunately, it isn't ready for final release on a Leopard installation on either PPC or Intel platforms.

I was a beta tester for Hear, and was glad to see it listed here, thinking JoeSoft had finally gotten that last bug squashed. Of course, the first thing I did was to test it--and the problem is still there. Here's how you can check it for yourself. (If you *don't* have the same problem, notify JoeSoft of your results and hardware/software setup.)

1. Install Hear and open the app. You'll be required to restart your system.

2. Open Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor). Be sure the Show pop-up menu is set to My Processes. Scroll down the list of processes until you see the UserEventAgent process. It will have stopped responding, and its name will be displayed in red.

If you want to verify that UserEventAgent is polling the Hear plugin, click on UserEventAgent in the process list, then click on the Inspect button in the toolbar. When the process inspector opens, click on the Open Files and Ports tab. Scroll through the list. You'll see /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/Hear.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Hear about halfway down. Then close the process inspector. (Don't click the Quit button; just close the window.)

3. Open a Finder window and navigate to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/. Drag the Hear.plugin (or simply Hear, if you have file extensions turned off) to the Desktop.

4. Back in Activity Monitor, click on UserEventAgent in the process list, then click on the Quit Process button in the toolbar. In the quit-process confirmation sheet, click the Quit button. UserEventAgent will quit, then another instance of it will be opened by launchd. Keep an eye on it for awhile. It won't turn red again (stop responding) unless you return the Hear.plugin to its point of installation and restart your system.

I've notified JoeSoft of this continued problem, and hope they'll have a fix for it soon. BTW, this problem doesn't exist for Tiger installations.  
(Version 1.0)