1. First you find EQ sux because it only makes your $10 speaker sound worse
2. With a better but still largely inadequate $30-80 speaker setup, you find that EQ helps to improve sound quality quite a bit
3. With 200-dollar speakers, plus a basic source, you find that EQ makes things too noisy and artificial
4. $500-2000 system, the source is clean enough to handle a bit of alteration, the speakers are beefy enough to dish out that bit more bass, and you also have a much cleaner equalizer (which is probably non-digital in nature). Heck, they have all these capacitors and varistors that EQ the sound inside the gear. Then there's this "tubyness" that is apparently adjustable.
5. $5000 to money-no-object, fk EQ, it's for pussies. You want bass at 8Hz? I GOT bass at 8Hz. My supertweeter hits 100kHz. 5-way systems FTW.
(Note: This is the point where audiophiles with different beliefs split ways. While many will opt for the scientifically perfect system that does not attempt to defy any law of physics and reproduces sound with utmost precision and accuracy, a siginificant number will opt for aesthetics and/or their beliefs in full-rangers and that crossovers are bad. Hence white smooth iPod speakers that cost $6,000SGD and floorstanders with one driver that cost >$10,000)
6. Back to the studio, where it all first started:
"I think the drummer isn't hitting it hard enuff"
"Lets up the bass so that it is"
"The vocalist sucks, she has too much sibilance"
"...so I decrease the high frequencies a bit... done"
"But her voice is too throaty, not forward enough, did I mention that she sucks?"
"Upped the 4kHz, nasal enough for you?"
"Thanks, that gives us the kawaii-ness of the voice we expect to hear from a 30-year-old"
"While we're at it lets clip the electric guitar more, it's not fierce enough"
"And the piano and strings backup don't feel spacious enough, giv'em some crossfeed"
Ahhhhh, EQ + mixer is like the Photoshop of music.
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