Do you think it's right or wrong to use the equalizer with headphones?
In the old days I used to feel guilty using EQ... I guess it was because I was admitting that my stereo was not good enough. Ironically, this was in the vinyl days when most records were not that great and they often really needed some high-end boost.
I assume you know what EQ does?
Headphones and speakers are imperfect so they can (usually) benefit from EQ as correction. But with good headphones you may not need or want EQ. (Most electronics have flat frequency response.)
Also, speakers interact with the room so they sound different in different rooms and to some extent headphones interact with the shape of the ear (slightly different on different people). Sometimes with closed headphones the seal varies from person-to-person and that affects the bass. Headphones are also notoriously difficult to measure and different measurement setups will give different results.
Further complicating things, a headphone with perfectly-flat frequency response won't sound flat or perfect (to most listeners). The
Harman Curve represents a statistical preference.
There are a few different reasons for using EQ...
- Correction of speaker-room or headphone frequency response.
- Loudness compensation. When you turn-down the volume it sounds like you've turned-down the bass even more. Most older receivers had a "loudness" switch that boosted the bass (relatively) as you turned-down the volume control. That's rare today but there are some AVRs with a "better" method that's calibrated to the gain and the acoustic loudness in the room instead of just relying on the volume-knob setting.
- Adjusting to taste-preference. i.e. Some people just like to boost the bass, etc.
- During production the mixing engineer might use EQ to correct the sound (microphones are also imperfect) or more often as an effect to enhance or alter the sound of various voices/instruments. The mastering will usually use EQ (along with dynamic compression other effects) to further tweak or "enhance" the sound.
- Some older recordings may have rolled-off highs or weak bass, etc., and that can be improved. Or, I have some a few modern "pop" recordings where the bass is overpowering and annoying to me. Of course that's also a personal preference and I'm not listening as the artist/producer intended.