I know this is heresy, but...

What is you preamp right now?? I will suggest you a good route, and in general the easiest, and what I found the best sound with never distortion or added color at loud levels that I could ever hear...You could sell your current pre, Buy a mcintosh preamp with 5 band eq built right into it, #1 if you pick up something used you will never lose money on it if you decide to move on down the road cause its mcintosh, #2 you get to keep the hi end status without adding a cheap plastic eq into the system, plus the mcintosh pre's are some of the best sounding out there, and will go low...

The models with the 5 bands have a 30 hz band so unless you are looking for 20 hz this is the best for simplicity. So if you can sell your current pre go for this, Another plus to a mcintosh is it will come with a variable loudness control, really contours super nice to listening levels and always makes your speakers sound filled out and full not just a loudness button, but some might only have the button.

Also they sound warm and smooth. Other options for anything good will require you to buy a pro audio unit, and unless your system uses balanced XLR you will be doing some adaptors to connect your RCA's. Watch out if you choose to go looking for a cheaper Consumer audio product, some of them only go as low as 60 hz or 40 hz... but 30 hz is plenty for anything on a music recording.

I am not speaking any home theater here with subs anyway but we don't know what your equipment is either. Just a suggestion, I myself sold my mcintosh because I ended up with a active crossover speaker system and have no use for an eq being I have a limitless parametric EQ built in connected to the woofers only, but still highly recommend mcintosh pre's for the sweetest bass pounding simplified 2 channel systems.

Two more to consider: If you want a lot of bands, I have had good results with a semipro unit, the Rane ME60, with thirty sliders per channel -- www.rane.com/me60.html. I you can get by with fewer bands, I understand the old Cello Palette is very musical -- you might be able to find a used one.

No matter which equalizer you get, you really need a RTA, so you can 'see' what you are doing. BTW, an equalizer isn't going to add any bottom to your system if it isn't already there! An equalizer is good for taking away bumps and anomolies, however.
Bob P.

Behringer DEQ 2496. Hook up a mic and let it do all the room corrections for you, then add or subtract what you want.

FYI, I always thought the shorter the signal path the better, then I tried this DEQ and I don't know how I listened without one. Buy it from someplace where you can return it if you don't like it, but I would bet you'll keep it.

This heresy business is a case of the emperor having no clothes. Of course you may need tone adjustment. Recordings vary widely in how much *they* were equalized (either naturally or artificially). Good recordings tend to sound better on more systems, but even good recordings may not sound right on a given system without some adjustment of the tone. The only problem with equalizers is if they distort or pollute the noise, not the fact of EQ per se. Furthermore, even if you wish to pump up the bass or treble more than the recording engineer intended, that is not necessarily wrong. It's a matter of taste, though many surely overdo it. The fact that so many "audiophiles" evidently shy away from EQ shows how subjective and susceptible to fashion this audiophile business is.