[colanderman]

I agree with everything you said, but were Apple compensating for that, I'd expect them to use a curve weighted to crappy studio monitors/Beats headphones/etc.

A couple other commenters noted that perception-weighted curves vary with total SPL; louder sounds sound different. I had never thought about that before but that makes sense to me, that Apple would apply a dynamic adjustment that studios can't.

[butisaidsudo]

Oh, that's an excellent point too! Bass boost and loudness buttons on stereos are meant to give you a way to make music sound the same at a lower volume, but most people just set it and forget it.

With fully digital players, I guess there's no reason to not have dynamic EQs that adjust along with the volume. I'd think you'd see this more often, but I guess even basic EQs aren't available most of the time, so it's just not a feature that most people would care about.