Why EQ a sound doesn't change timbre?

[Nowhk]

Okay. Well, that's cool. So it's a philosophy thread.

Of course it is. I've noticed this few page ago

In several non-English languages, there is no differentiation between blue and green. There's a whole multidisciplinary body of literature around this fact. But to bring it back to what we're talking about, it's not so much that it doesn't matter, but other then noting there's a thing and exploring it in every way, what can anyone practically do about someone else's perceptions?

Not sure why its so hard for you understand that I'm not talking about relation between people's perception.
Really, I wrote this 100 times right now

I'm talking about the perception of a single person, during its life. Take you for example, or take me (not me vs you).
Once I hear a "song" on my flat system, what I get/perceive (the song) its different than tomorrow listening on loudspeakers. Like I get blue and tomorrow a shade of blue. Or you get the same as green and tomorrow another shade of green.

How do you identify a "song" if its perception (i.e. what you listen) is continuously changing? It is (for me) blue or that shade of blue? It is (for you) green or that shade of green.
That's where I spoken about "faces"...

It appears "different" (the famous variations) every time I consume it. How can you identify somethings "unique" if its continuously changing? That's my concern.

I can't identify it as listener, never mind a producer, who produce... what exactly? (since it will continuously changing).
That's where I spoken about "basis"...

What I said has been categorized dumb & trolling, so what's you opinion?

[yellowmix]

...

[slipstick]

How do you identify a "song" if its perception (i.e. what you listen) is continuously changing? It is (for me) blue or that shade of blue? It is (for you) green or that shade of green.
That's where I spoken about "faces"...

You've just answered your own question. Different shades of blue are still blue. That's how you identify them as blue. Because they are all blue.

Now if you were saying the differences are so great that sometimes you see blue and sometimes you look at the same thing and see yellow or perhaps you listen to a song and you hear Eleanor Rigby but when you listen again to the same track you hear the Hallelujah Chorus that would be a real problem of identification. But nothing like that happens does it?

It's like you're saying that you can't identify the sky as the sky because the last time you looked there was a big cloud in it and now the cloud is slightly smaller. So how can it still be the sky?

Steve

[Nowhk]

You've just answered your own question. Different shades of blue are still blue. That's how you identify them as blue. Because they are all blue.

What are you trying to say to me with this?
That even if I get different shades, my brain converge all of these informations to a single entity? Which I perceive as unique?
Sort of "surjective function" between set A = physical waves and set B = perception?
This is how things works? The famous "Subjective Constancy"?

Mmm.... but if so...

Why many users here suggest that perception always changes instead (which means that I got different blues/perception everytime)? And since you brain is so advanced, why it should be so "limited" on discard such of details?

Is it documented this in respect of music and audio in general? I didn't find any studies about this; the same subjective constancy seems just a merely theory for what I've learnt.

[slipstick]

You've just answered your own question. Different shades of blue are still blue. That's how you identify them as blue. Because they are all blue.

What are you trying to say to me with this?
That even if I get different shades, my brain converge all of these informations to a single entity? Which I perceive as unique?
Sort of "surjective function" between set A = physical waves and set B = perception?
This is how things works? The famous "Subjective Constancy"?

It's loosely related to perceptual constancy but really has more to do with the brain's well documented ability to extract and focus on commonalities rather than on relatively minor differences. What the cognitive scientists tend to call "object recognition". It's the same mechanism that allows you to recognise a table as a table even if the one in front of you now is different in size, shape, colour, material etc. from any other table you've ever seen. More studied in vision rather than hearing but the mechanism exists for all perceptual domains.

It's a matter of automatic classification rather than uniqueness. Eleanor Rigby is not a single unique entity. There are thousands of them which all differ in subtle ways but which the brain can easily recognise as all being members of the class "Eleanor Rigby". So asking which is the real Eleanor Rigby is a pointless question. They all are (except perhaps that Aretha Franklin version which may have been so badly mangled that it falls outside of the class limits).

Steve

[Nowhk]

Eleanor Rigby is not a single unique entity. There are thousands of them which all differ in subtle ways but which the brain can easily recognise as all being members of the class "Eleanor Rigby". So asking which is the real Eleanor Rigby is a pointless question. They all are (except perhaps that Aretha Franklin version which may have been so badly mangled that it falls outside of the class limits).

This is what I wanted to arrive from the beginning of this thread!
This is what I've sustained since page 6 using that "infinite faces" expression, and get treaty like an idiot by many people in the remainings 12 pages

Aren't those "subtle ways variations shaped by the environments" included in the class "Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles, 1966"?
(or in general class "Eleanor Rigby" if you prefer)

I think they are! But that's just an "hypothesis".
Do you agree with this?

[BertKoor]

... since you brain is so advanced ...

Hell no, it constantly messes with you:
http://nerdist.com/5-optical-illusions- ... the-dress/
Draw your own conclusions of how the brain processes things.

[Nowhk]

... since you brain is so advanced ...

Hell no, it constantly messes with you:
http://nerdist.com/5-optical-illusions- ... the-dress/
Draw your own conclusions of how the brain processes things.

Of course it does But its also able to catch a friend's conversation inside the famous cocktail party. That I meant as advanced.

I'm not talking about these "illusions". But on things that you are able to distinguish changed by environment. As said before, listen to different speakers.

You also confirmed you perceive different things (which in fact are different also physically). The "messes" here would be if you perceive the same on different setup, but that's not the case, right? Your "Sure" confirm this

[BertKoor]

What these illusions do show is how it works.

You cannot see colours & grey shades in isolation. You need context around it to decide: is this a sunlit dark surface, or light surface in the shade.

Same with sound. You need a reference to tell 70dB spl from 72dB spl. To our brain the absolute level is meaningless, it always is about relative levels. Observe things within their context and make sense of that. Peel off the context or things that may have distorted the observation. That makes white paper being seen as white in the dark, and it makes a piano recognisable when heard over the telephone.

The brain always is selective: you cannot see & hear all the details.
The brain always corellates current observations with past experience. But your memory is sketchy and not to be trusted.
The brain sometimes reconstructs what it thinks it is missing.

What you observe is an illusion, created by your own brain. You cannot tell apart reality from a dream. Same parts of the brain do that. Your conscience self is not in direct contact with the sensory system, but it is presented an internally produced model of observed reality in its current state.

It works. But don't ask how exactly. We don't know yet.

[slipstick]

Eleanor Rigby is not a single unique entity. There are thousands of them which all differ in subtle ways but which the brain can easily recognise as all being members of the class "Eleanor Rigby". So asking which is the real Eleanor Rigby is a pointless question. They all are (except perhaps that Aretha Franklin version which may have been so badly mangled that it falls outside of the class limits).

This is what I wanted to arrive from the beginning of this thread!
This is what I've sustained since page 6 using that "infinite faces" expression, and get treaty like an idiot by many people in the remainings 12 pages

Aren't those "subtle ways variations shaped by the environments" included in the class "Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles, 1966"? (or in general class "Eleanor Rigby" if you prefer)

Most people who want to see if there is agreement with a hypothesis present the hypothesis and ask.

The reason people have problems with your hypothesis as presented is that you appear to be obsessed with the most minute differences, which most people who are just listening to the music as music, will simply never hear/notice/perceive. And at the same time you express no interest in the larger changes which affect the sound but still leave it "the same song".

In this you seem like those hi-fi obsessives who spend their time positioning their seating and auditioning different types of speaker cable and gold/silver plated connectors using test recordings and trying to decide if they can hear a 0.5dB dip at 11.3KHz...but who never actually get round to listening to any music "because the system isn't right yet".

So of course subtle differences because of the listening environment are included in the class but, more importantly, so are much less subtle differences caused by e.g. listening to the master tape in the studio control room minutes after it is finalised vs listening to a vinyl single of the same song after pressing on a Dansette record player or that same single again over the air and playing on a cheap transistor radio. Not so subtle but still likely experiences for one person...and still the same song.

Steve

[Nowhk]

What you observe is an illusion, created by your own brain.

Clear! But can this illusion be preserved? Or its going to changes every time? You agree that every listening is different from previous one, so it changes a bit every time; this last assumption of brain relative balance suggest you mean brain compensate for varations and build the same perception every time. Aren't these in contradiction?

In this you seem like those hi-fi obsessives who spend their time positioning their seating and auditioning different types of speaker cable and gold/silver plated connectors using test recordings and trying to decide if they can hear a 0.5dB dip at 11.3KHz...but who never actually get round to listening to any music "because the system isn't right yet".

Lol. Not at all. Audiophiles? Not my field, I also don't get them at all.

The reason people have problems with your hypothesis as presented is that you appear to be obsessed with the most minute differences, which most people who are just listening to the music as music

But part of what you get on a song (music) is also (also, not only) timbre. If timbre changes every time (as most of us confirmed) on different setups, I see logically that the song has been changed as well. Even if melody, harmony and such are keep the same, timbre is not always the same.

Thus, if you assume this, I see deserved that you must also agree that a song is not a unique entity, it always "transform" (a bit), so (as you suggested by that word), is a "class" of manifestations/expressions.
The "translate" term so seems to refers to which expressions you want to exhibit across fixed targets.

I've already said this (maybe with different words), but most of you can't agree, and I don't catch why.

That's why I'm still on topic...

Note: of course if you refers to a song by just its score, the whole has no sense at all. But for the ones who also care about different details, this has.
Eleanor Rigby player by an orchestral for me its another "class", another song. I call it reinterpretation. That's just subjective.
As I care how a kick "punch" on different quality speakers. And since I care this (and I can distinguish them, as you can), conflate all of different "punch" within a "unique" song identification, well, that's "hurt" me. Heres where I'm obsessed maybe

[jancivil]

A perfect example of how you are overconfident in your knowledge. This is partly true and partly a myth. As I said, there is research on this. Further you clearly miss the point. Whether they share the same timbre or not depends completely on how we measure timbre.
...
Here you go, I did your homework for you

'violinists cant tell the difference'

I know the Fritz's experiment (its a famous one in this sector), but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing here. I take the Player preferences among new and old violins link, which is more "common":

"asked judges and participants at the 2010 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis to choose the violin they preferred from a pool of three modern violins, two Stradivariuses, and one Guarneri 'del Gesu'.".
"they preferred", not "they are able to select a vintage violin".

Study finds classic instruments not always the best.

They simply "choose" your favourite one. So they theoretically have been distinguish between them. I say "theoretically" because the test is "vague", it says nothing about the percentage of which partecipants choose them "randomly" or not. So again, its vague... you can't rely on it. The test makes sense if "100% of partecipants didn't have a clue of the differences and choose one of it random". But its not this way.

You seem overconfident on this.

[...] you have no evidence whatsoever that it actually matters to you, let alone anyone else.

"It still doesn't matter" is again your only personal opinion,

This really captures ghettosynth's whole campaign here. You need evidence before the thing, which is subjective to you, matters to you. And a bunch of individual preferences, seen that one day, is evidence. round and round we go.

[Nowhk]

This really captures ghettosynth's whole campaign here. You need evidence before the thing, which is subjective to you, matters to you. And a bunch of individual preferences, seen that one day, is evidence. round and round we go.

Again, I feel difficult to catch the meaning of this phrase, translating it Were you ironic? Not sure...

Which kind of evidence you need for starting a discussion? Scientific?

Since we are discussing "art" (and music is denominated the "finest art"), saying that my listening experience change a bit (or a lot, its subjective; but the quantity doesn't matter here) due to the setup/environments where you are listening to it, well, I think that's a evidence.

Do you feel/experience the same when you are listening to the same piece of music on flat system, hifi or headphones? I don't believe so. I'm not saying that this difference only depends by the medium, but ALSO by it, a little part, which I consider relevant.

[ghettosynth]

This really captures ghettosynth's whole campaign here. You need evidence before the thing, which is subjective to you, matters to you. And a bunch of individual preferences, seen that one day, is evidence. round and round we go.

Again, I feel difficult to catch the meaning of this phrase, translating it Were you ironic? Not sure...
.

She's simply trying to find criticism in my position where none lies. Subjective preferences can certainly be objectively tested to determine if there is an actual perception difference or it's simply bias. What does she think that the point of double blind testing is?

However with respect to that study she's as ignorant as you. The participants were asked to make a prediction based on their own experience, that prediction is where they failed. You cannot say "I prefer old violins" and then when put to the test you choose a new one and still claim "I prefer old violins." Moreover, in case people didn't notice, the experiment was repeated and, as expected, the musician s again failed in their predictions. At some point one has to face the idea that their biases are simply that.

My criticism of you position is that your own perception is colored by your extreme bias which is self-evident in this post. You will stop at nothing to convince yourself that your precious hypothesis is true despite overwhelming evidence that you're chasing noise.

[Nowhk]

However with respect to that study she's as ignorant as you.

How arrogant are you man? My gosh...

The participants were asked to make a prediction based on their own experience, that prediction is where they failed. You cannot say "I prefer old violins" and then when put to the test you choose a new one and still claim "I prefer old violins."

Again: NO! The test wasn't to choose an old violin instead of new one! It was to "choose" the favourite one. Of course one that is convinced old is better, got a BIAS and never choose a new one, knowing it is a new one. But that's not what's happened. They didn't wrong to choose old or new, they just choose new. This means that the BIAS is in considering old better than new, not to don't be able to make a decision between two different sources (so, catch the differences and makes a choice). The difference is wide.
Its more similar to the fact you are convinced (by the marketing) that analog is superior than digital, and when you "blind" have to choose you realize that digital sounds better FOR you. But you have make a "unbiased" choice, you have not choosed digital because you are not able to distinguish the two.

My criticism of you position is that your own perception is colored by your extreme bias which is self-evident in this post. You will stop at nothing to convince yourself that your precious hypothesis is true despite overwhelming evidence that you're chasing noise.

Let me understand: so you sustain that different setups/environments gives to a single individual the same perceptions, right? Flat, headphones, loudspeakers, whatever medium you will use... the timbre you got is always the same?
I JUST ask, I'm curious: I still don't even understand this from you. (I would underline btw that you still doesn't reply to my "what do you mean with it doesn't matter" question).
You could be surely correct, but first I need to understand what you are claiming. Its not clear at all for me, because once you have to say somethings, you just reply with "you don't know what you don't know, go learn". I will, let me see where...

P.s. I put there friendly: what if YOU are extreme biased and your own brain "delete" the color between different setup? Can you surely exclude this? Any ABX test can confirm your certainties? (because the violins one has nothing to do with this)