Should Equalizers make a comeback?


Some like warm, some like bright, some like neutral. Should hardware equalizers make a comeback? Basically aren't Marantz and Rotel amps just rolled off a tiny bit in upper end? In the recording world, you can buy a one box Focusrite mic preamp emulator that seeks to recreate the classics from the past (I'm sure it lacks in pure sound quality from the originals). Would something like this work for audiophiles?
aberyclark
My Mac preamp has bass and treble. I leave it flat. My JL Audio has automatic room compensation. Someone above said he misses the LOUDNESS COMPENSATION on his old YAMAHA. I had a YAMAHA with one in the day and did not like it. My Mac preamp has one and I never use it either. But it is for low volumne and I don't think it is ever low.
Mac's had equalizers on many of their preamps, and still do, nammely the C42 and C46. I have the 5-band on my C37, and although I don't use it, it's nice to know it's there if I need to use it. Same with the loudness control, never use it either.
Every room is acoustically different. Speakers have different radiation patterns etc. Who actually thinks that he is hearing the same thing in his room that the recording engineer heard in his? Many "straight wire with gain" folks roll tubes, change wires, even components, in order to get their desired results of "no equalization". Room equalization is a necessity to accomplish the "purest" goal, much less personal taste.
You would think the "straight wire" crowd would be discussing the systems of the various mastering engineers. Every component injects some "eq" naturally. Some components are "biased" a little warmer (Marantz comes to mind). Many people pick components (mostly) for their particular sound. So really, it's the same as using an EQ
Every time I use tone controls to tame highs or boomy bass,
something sounds fundamentally wrong. As soon as I take the preamp tone controls out via the defeat switch, a level of distortion just disappears. The same thing happened when I used a high-end digital equalizer at one time. This happened with various speakers and headphones. I avoid them whenever possible. They sound good in theory (and I use them on my integrated amp to cut the treble on for my TV, but that's just TV, so who cares), but it seems like a false hope to me.
My great expectations for equalization have always been dashed.