[maverickronin]

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EQ can be OK if you do it right. Still, I take the audiophile hairshirt approach of not buying something unless it entirely agrees with me.

If something isn't what you want, then why buy it in the first place?

There's such a wide variety of equipment today that you can be picky.

I'd never buy anything then because I've never heard anything that ever entirely agrees with me.  Even at CanJam last year, which might be a sign that it doesn't exist.  Even if you do find something, that doesn't mean you can afford it either.
 
No matter how many pairs of headphones there are, it will always pale in comparison to the infinite amount of tweaking that a decent EQ is capable of.
 
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As far as I'm concerned EQs are an admission that something isn't right and a temptation to endlessly fiddle and adjust---IOW, a distraction from the music. I've never felt the need of one beyond a physical Marantz EQ for recording really scratchy material onto minidisc. When I occasionally tweak my treble control to the right slightly it's to compensate for the material rather than the headphone, as 85% of the time I use the bypass switch. I couldn't imagine having a permanently satisfactory setting of an EQ as the variation in material would keep tempting me to experiment with the settings again...and again. Maybe just one more notch up on the 4khz slider would sound a touch better....or down two at 150hz would get rid of that mid-bass boom....it never finishes, guys.

 
Of course it is.  Nothing is ever perfect.  The LCD-2s are one of the closest I've heard, but they sure aren't actually perfect.

 

[Paul Meakin]

Rather wise words, these.
 
Myself and a couple of friends who were in the hi-fi business almost drove ourselves nuts many (many, many...) years ago with constant tweaking and trying different options to our relatively high-end systems of the time. This was rather than listening to music.
 
Get your system to what sounds good to you, then forget the gear and enjoy the music!
 
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All of the truly serious music geeks I know don't give a crap about the gear. People with really deep collections and who know a frightening amount about the music. They tend not to care much, if at all, about the gear. Cheap stuff is fine as long as it holds up and plays their music.

There's a lesson in there.