[laumars]

> However, I've zero desire to intentionally alter the frequency response so I'm hearing something different than the musicians and mixing engineer intended.

I’ve done a lot of research on this as a recording artist myself and what you’re saying here is a misunderstood meme.

Eg Half the records released before 80s have been remastered to sound different to what the musicians originally recorded.

Plus any medium adds colour, vinyl adds warmth to the playback, digital formats (unless you’re using lossless, which most people don’t) add artifecting, etc. Songs are often written for their preferred medium.

So there isn’t really an exact “as intended” but rather a broader “Goldilocks zone” (for want a better term). This is especially true if you listen to a broad variety of genres.

You’ll also find that most songs record in the last 20 years will be compressed to hell and back so they sound good regardless of how shitty the sound systems are in peoples homes and cars. This isn’t an artistic decision, it’s what producers and sound engineers do to make records sound good for the lowest common denominator. It’s also part of the reason why live music sound better (if the gig or club has a half decent sound engineer anyway).

> Intentionally having a non-flat frequency response is equivalent to adjusting the colour space / colour grading of your monitor to not accurately represent colours.

Some content is actually deficient in some spectrums due to the limitations of the media or technologies of the era. Those limitations were intended to be compensated by speakers that added that colour. There’s a reason why studio monitors with zero frequency curve are less common to for rock fans than acoustic speakers (for example).

Lastly it’s also worth noting that not everyone’s ears hear spectrums equally. Our ears don’t have a zero frequency curve and that curve will differ from person to person. Which is why some of the best headphones out there are ones that profile your hearing and then perform post processing on the music based on your hearing profile.

[kuschku]

And that's why you buy the CD release of Peter Gabriel albums and listen to those instead ;)

[laumars]

Already discussed that point: those have been remastered for CD and thus sound different to the original recorded versions.

If you’re a purist like the GP then you wouldn’t listen to the CD versions. Of course, in practice most people are not that much of a purist. Which is why the whole meme of “as the artists intended” is largely hypocritical posturing.