I claim not to have an answer, but to present this question that has been troubling me the last couple days.
Is it a distortion of the artist’s intended art if you run it through your own EQ settings? Of course the composition remains the same, and the timbre generally remains consistent, but the overall sound, which instruments may be focused on at a given point, will be altered. Note that often the performers and the producers are different people, and thus their collective vision consists the artistic intent.
On the contrary, every sound system and listening situation is different. The speakers you hear the music through are likely not the same that the artists were when producing. Even factors such as temperature can affect the pitch (although the differences are too small to alter normal listening). Does it not make sense to then alter the sound in such a way the maintains the intended artistic integrity but also optimize personal aesthetic preferences, since recreating the original production environment is practically impossible. Even when it makes sense to boost the higher frequency tones to hear over any outside noise (since very rarely do people listen to music in a soundless environment)?
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Rondanini Pietà. 1552–1564, Museo della Pietà Rondanini, Sforza Castle, Milan.
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