Why EQ a sound doesn't change timbre?

[Nowhk]

In the context of this thread, you should. What your brain is doing is recognising. Your ear is a mechanism for feeding sensory input to the brain, but its the brain that listens and listening is recognition.

Uhm, not sure if thats true. If I listen to electronic/synth music, I live the whole sound It gives to me. I'm not recognise preset/synth, just feeling the sound. If that "change", it means I'm listening somethings different No?

EQ impacts timbre, your speakers impact timbre, your amplifier impacts timbre, the cup on your desk can impact the timbre, move it to the other side and the timbre will be different, however, you won't be able to tell that it is, so why are you worried about it?

What do you mean with "I'm not able to tell that It is"? That I hear the same timbre? Please explain this...

[whyterabbyt]

In the context of this thread, you should. What your brain is doing is recognising. Your ear is a mechanism for feeding sensory input to the brain, but its the brain that listens and listening is recognition.

Uhm, not sure if thats true.

It is. Go learn something about the physiology and psychology of perception.

If I listen to electronic/synth music, I live the whole sound It gives to me. I'm not recognise preset/synth, just feeling the sound.

Dont be an idiot. You're trying to conflate 'recognition of audio' with 'recognition of one specific factor of an musical perfomance'

If your brain wasnt doing some sort of recognition process it wouldnt be music to you in the first place. It, llike everything else, would just be 'sound'.

If that "change", it means I'm listening somethings different

No, it means you're hearing something very trivially different.

What you're listening to is merely derived from from what you're hearing.

Hearing is pretty much entirely passive, you have no control whatsoever over what reaches your ear. Listening is what your brain does, and you almost certainly do not listen to 'the whole sound' because your brain is dynamic and selective as to what it gives attention to and how it parses that.

Its exactly like with your eyes; you're not seeing everything in front of your eyes, you're merely looking at things and changing where you look. Admittedly, there's an active physical coupling (moving your head and eyes) between where you look and what you focus on, because you only actually have a very small area of your eye that sees well and you move that to look at something specific so you can see that specific thing best. But you dont 'see' everything in front of your eyes, you see what your brain has its attention on. You just move change where you look, and recognise that area of focus, very rapidly.
Your hearing is exactly the same, sans the mobility. You listen to and for specific subsets of the total input.

[Nowhk]

No, it means you're hearing something very trivially different.

What you're listening to is merely derived from from what you're hearing.

Hearing is pretty much entirely passive, you have no control whatsoever over what reaches your ear. Listening is what your brain does, and you almost certainly do not listen to 'the whole sound' because your brain is dynamic and selective as to what it gives attention to and how it parses that.

Its exactly like with your eyes; you're not seeing everything in front of your eyes, you're merely looking at things and changing where you look. Admittedly, there's an active physical coupling (moving your head and eyes) between where you look and what you focus on, because you only actually have a very small area of your eye that sees well and you move that to look at something specific so you can see that specific thing best. But you dont 'see' everything in front of your eyes, you see what your brain has its attention on. You just move change where you look, and recognise that area of focus, very rapidly.
Your hearing is exactly the same, sans the mobility. You listen to and for specific subsets of the total input.

Awesome analysis. This would explain lots of stuff.
But, if thats how the things works... why people buy gears that play with some "colors" instead of another? Why do you prefer an headphone instead of another? Why you see prefer a LCD monitor instead of a cathode? If our brain will extrapolate (listening, see, ecc) the same stuff, why choose different medium? Whats the meaning of "that gear play better for me"?

[whyterabbyt]

But, if thats how the things works... why people buy gears that play with some "colors" instead of another? Why do you prefer an headphone instead of another? Why you see prefer a LCD monitor instead of a cathode? If our brain will extrapolate (listening, see, ecc) the same stuff, why choose different medium? Whats the meaning of "that gear play better for me"?

Because listening to/via that individual thing provides something they find more aesthetically pleasing or useful than some other thing, obviously. Whether the extra thing perceived is real or placebo.

Because recognition, which is predicated on discrimination and expectation.

[dark water]

No, it means you're hearing something very trivially different.

What you're listening to is merely derived from from what you're hearing.

Hearing is pretty much entirely passive, you have no control whatsoever over what reaches your ear. Listening is what your brain does, and you almost certainly do not listen to 'the whole sound' because your brain is dynamic and selective as to what it gives attention to and how it parses that.

Its exactly like with your eyes; you're not seeing everything in front of your eyes, you're merely looking at things and changing where you look. Admittedly, there's an active physical coupling (moving your head and eyes) between where you look and what you focus on, because you only actually have a very small area of your eye that sees well and you move that to look at something specific so you can see that specific thing best. But you dont 'see' everything in front of your eyes, you see what your brain has its attention on. You just move change where you look, and recognise that area of focus, very rapidly.
Your hearing is exactly the same, sans the mobility. You listen to and for specific subsets of the total input.

Awesome analysis. This would explain lots of stuff.
But, if thats how the things works... why people buy gears that play with some "colors" instead of another? Why do you prefer an headphone instead of another? Why you see prefer a LCD monitor instead of a cathode? If our brain will extrapolate (listening, see, ecc) the same stuff, why choose different medium? Whats the meaning of "that gear play better for me"?

Individual desires, needs, traits, social pressures (and GAS!).
As per Sean's explanation, you would be incapable of living/functioning without your brain filtering out the vast amount of ('background') information which comes to your senses.
In many ways, how baby animals develop (and continue to develop) this skill in the early days, building upon their experiences within the womb, is truly amazing.

[BertKoor]

Why does your mother drive another type of car than you do? It's the same question in essence. And the same answer: Because we are induviduals with different experience and different expectations.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Read that novel. It deals with Quality. We all find different things important.

[Nowhk]

Damn, I really don't get this point.

How a medium can improve the pleasure of a thing (perception of a sound) without affetting the thing itself (which is what I used to think was happening).

Could be maybe the "hardness" on evalutating things? Like prefer to read using a common font (Arial) instead of a weird/style one (such as wordart)? Can't really think a comparison with audio...

Mmm... tripping...

[slipstick]

People are different, hearing is different, likes are different. What's so hard about that?

But if you're trying to work out why different people like different things you're going to have to get a lot deeper into physiology, psychology and neuroscience than this forum will help you with.

Steve

[Nowhk]

People are different, hearing is different, likes are different. What's so hard about that?

But if you're trying to work out why different people like different things you're going to have to get a lot deeper into physiology, psychology and neuroscience than this forum will help you with.

Steve

Again, I don't care about people in general. I don't care why you like Britney Spears and why I hate it.

But why I prefer (I, not you) listen to techno on a speaker rather another one, when at the end the "sound perception" is not affected by systems.

I always though because it changes "sound" (what I perceive), adding its own; but in fact (follow this thread) is not. Its not hard, is just "I don't understand" this (that's the point now).

[BertKoor]

So I had this friend, he always listened to his music on a multimedia set: no lows, lots of background noise; terrible! If you ask me, that is. But he did not care about technical quality. Just the music itself, and he could hear that. It's weird still...

[slipstick]

I always though because it changes "sound" (what I perceive), adding its own; but in fact (follow this thread) is not. Its not hard, is just "I don't understand" this (that's the point now).

Sound is air moving, changes in pressure, vibrations. Changing EQ, different systems, changing position in a room, changing the furniture in the room all affect what sound actually arrives at your ears.

But what you perceive, i.e. what you actually make of the air pressure variations that arrive at your ears, is inside your own head. You're now at least partly into psychology not physics.

And you refusing to understand the most basic ideas is getting really boring so I'm out. Bye.

Steve

[dark water]

I always though because it changes "sound" (what I perceive), adding its own; but in fact (follow this thread) is not. Its not hard, is just "I don't understand" this (that's the point now).

Sound is air moving, changes in pressure, vibrations. Changing EQ, different systems, changing position in a room, changing the furniture in the room all affect what sound actually arrives at your ears.

But what you perceive, i.e. what you actually make of the air pressure variations that arrive at your ears, is inside your own head. You're now at least partly into psychology not physics.

And you refusing to understand the most basic ideas is getting really boring so I'm out. Bye.

Steve

+1

@Nowhk - you're arguing with people who are trying to respond with good advice to your "I don't understand" comments.
Seriously, if you want to understand more about how you cognitively process sensory information, and how individual factors might cause a person to filter out certain information compared to other information, you need to study and learn about psychology.
"Psychology - The Science of Mind and Behaviour" is a useful introductory text to these issues.
Failing that, various people have pointed out on this page how perception works. You have the information, now use it and stop the "I don't understand" replies.

[ghettosynth]

Damn, I really don't get this point.

Because you haven't done enough reading and you don't have enough experience.

[Nowhk]

You really don't get my point, I'm so sorry I'm not able to communicate with you. Its my english fault I bet (I'm not a native english, as you can guess ).

Maybe, as for sound, we have different history, culture and way to approch to it. Part of what you are saying are senseless for me, unfortunately.

I try last time, hoping in a more lucky Feel free to send me to the hell :*

Try listen this track on your different setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGxVGHKBCI
Really, do you "listen" on each setup the same "musical" elements every time? Heres not a singer (which you can recognize also with trivial hearing differences) which "says" recognizable words.

On different environments I got that bass sounding really different (dumped on highs for example), its envelope tend to be light on speakers with soft transient. Changes are soooo significants... the overall noise give different effects.

Of course if I listen on car I can filter it out from the car's engine and external noise, but thats not the point: what I filter out "sounds" different from cars to car setups. But I enjoy the sound as result. Noise music!!!
There's nothing to recognize in that song imo.

Maybe thats my fault. I just buy that book on Amazon however, hope it can help me!
I'm sorry if you are boring, not my intent. Hope you can forgive me; thank you anyway for all' the time spent in this discussion :*

[dark water]

It sounds like you are thinking about how an environment affects the playback of a sound?

Think about it like this: the characteristics of the song stay the same every time if the song is only being played back (as opposed to mixed live) in a location.
However, not only will different electronic equipment etc affect how a song reaches your ear, but also the different acoustic environments will amplify or reduce certain elements of the total sound you are receiving by their own natures.
Think of reverb chambers, or how playing back the same song in a cathedral will sound very different from playing it back in your car, for example.


Is this what you are thinking? If so, then yes...
The original sound + electronic equipment + the acoustic environment (+ how you cognitively process the sensory information coming into your brain) will affect how you listen to a sound. This is also why your listening experiences will be different if any of those variables (and many more which I've probably missed out) change.
Even having a head cold can often give you a different listening experience!