FIR Equalizer & Timbre Matching

[kareface]

So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about timbre matching. He seemed to believe that equalization could correct for tonality. While it can help, it can't fix speakers with poor matching. He brought up the use of a fir equalizer. I said it still wouldn't be enough, but I was curious what other people thought about the matter. It's really a 2 part question, would a fir equalizer be capable of correcting the difference in tonality between 2 speakers with very different tonal qualities, and would it also be possible to us it to correct ones that were similar, but audibly different prior to equalization?

[Beerserker]

I don't know the first thing about FIR EQ's, other then what FIR stands for.
However, I cant see how any EQ can compensate for different driver distortion profiles, dampening, and the the box characteristics etc., etc. that contribute to tone. It seems that even if you could match two different speakers at a given volume, as soon as you changed the volume, your match goes out the window.

That's the way it seems to me, but I don't exactly have proper schooling in higher physics or acoustics. Gut feeling only. Maybe a FIR is more capable then I give it credit for???

[Big Daddy]

Timbre:
Definition according to American National Standards Institutde (ANSI): The combination of qualities of a sound that distinguishes it from other sounds of the same pitch and volume.

Timbre is also known as tone quality or tone color. It is sometimes described as sound quality. The term quality in this context refers to how a sound comes across to a listener as the general character of the sound.

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments. More specifically, timbre enables the listener to identify the source of the sound ( the particular musical instrument making the sound) and according to some musical type such as brass or string instruments. For example, timbre is what people use to distinguish a trumpet from a saxophone if both instruments are playing notes at the same pitch and loudness. No amount of equalization will make the two instruments sound the same.

Pitch:
In music, pitch is the perception of the fundamental frequency of a note. Pitch is something perceived by the human ear, as opposed to frequency, the physical measurement of vibration. Pitch of a sound is determined by the frequency of vibration of the sound waves reaching the ear: the greater the frequency, the higher the pitch.

Pitch can be rank ordered on a scale from low to high and loudness can be arranged on a scale from soft to loud. We generally correlate pitch with fundamental frequency and loudness with intensity.

Timbre is different than pitch and loudness and cannot be reduced to one-dimensional scale. It cannot be related with any one physical dimension of a sound. We cannot say high timbre or low timbre. This makes the definition of timbre very vague.

Timbre and equalization are different by definition and no amount of equalization will have any effect on timbre. Equalization simply increases or decreases the level of certain frequencies. After equalization you can still distinguish between the speakers.

[progers13]

Very informative BD! I learn something new from your posts every day.

[Big Daddy]

Originally Posted by progers13

Very informative BD! I learn something new from your posts every day.

The funny thing is that I learn something new myself everytime I am forced to put my thoughts together or do some research and write things down.

[kareface]

Yeah, I told him this already but we'll see if he chooses to believe me. Thanks for the input.