[sjtgraham]

I think they are different things. Knowing the sound of a perfect fifth is not perfect pitch, but relative pitch. One could transcribe a piece of music from memory with just very good relative pitch, with the caveat they probably will transcribe it in the incorrect key.

[ek]

Are you saying that you think perfect pitch and absolute pitch are different things? They are synonyms, cf. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch .

If you're saying that perfect pitch and relative pitch are different things in that it isn't as if perfect pitch is better than relative pitch, then yeah, I absolutely agree. The hacks that I mentioned involve perfect pitch specifically, but transcription ability like you mention is probably tied most to one's sense of relative pitch, even if one has perfect pitch.

[sjtgraham]

Oops! I clearly need to read better. I thought I read relative pitch vs absolute/perfect pitch. Sorry about that.