13 Ways To Get Better Sound And Music On Your Mac Using Hear

I like working with audio and my Mac has a number of sound enhancing apps. Rich, clear, vibrant sound isn’t always easy to have.

Some music seems weak in volume. Movie clips often have poor audio. What’s needed for Mac users who want better sound is an app that enhances audio, and gives you plenty of easy to use, point and click tools to maximize the sound in music and video clips.

A Baker’s Dozen Audio Toolbox

Among the dozen or so Mac audio apps I rely upon to sweeten audio production, music, and the audio in video clips is an app called Hear.

By my count, there are over a dozen ways that Hear helps to improve audio so that whatever your sound source is, the output is better than the original.

What Hear does that’s different than the audio in most Mac apps is that it assigns specific audio output– tools and adjustments, from EQ to Mixer to FX and more– to the audio output of specific apps, like iTunes or Safari.

There are plenty of presets for music, speech, movies, games, and more, easily selectable from the menu.

Take a look at the interface and 13 specific functional enhancements.

Not only can you drop in presets to the audio output of specific apps, but you can customize and create audio enhancements and save them as presets.

Fidelity – this tab restores subtle sounds which are often obscured in the original recordings.

Limiter – controls ceiling and threshold and level compression.

Space – bounces sound around.

Speaker – perfect enhancements for your headphones or speaker system which widens the frequency range and improves output phase.

Sub – think subwoofer; expands bass frequencies

Ambience – add a variety of reverbs to the output sound

BW – somewhat esoteric enhancement for relaxation music by generating aurally enhanced brain waves (or something like that).

Maximizer – think improved dynamic range with stronger bass and crisper highs; a ‘live’ sound.

3D – control your speaker locations.

FX – sound remixing and effects filters gone wild.

Mixer – my favorite; adjust sound for specific apps; even controls volume so the Mail sound is soft while iTunes is loud.

Equalizer – it’s an equalizer but has built-in limiters with slider or curve mode for fine tuned adjustments.

General – adjust the basic effects of bass, fidelity, dewoofer and much more.

All those tools give your Mac fine tuned controls for sound output. If what you want is better audio output from your Mac, and more control on a per app basis, Hear is worth listening to.

The only real negatives to Hear is the inability to use Hear output on anything but the Mac’s speakers (or, system output), and the numerous presets can be overwhelming.

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