Cameron, do you think you might have some loss of sensitivity in your hearing spectrum in the bass and/or treble region, due to damage or illness or long-term exposure to high SPLs?
You could find out if you go to an audiologist and have your hearing tested. It's also somewhat age-dependent. Males all lose some sensitivity after age 30--it's very gradual--and the parts of the spectrum where we lose sensitivity may vary from one person to another. Most commonly it's the really high frequencies that go first, 15 kHz and higher, but there's nothing of musical interest up there, except a few harmonics that are extremely low-level and musically not important.
But if you lost sensitivity in the upper midrange and bass, that might be reflected in your tendency to crank up the bass and treble.
Maybe you just need an EP500 subwoofer to restore the lower octaves, ha, ha!
Regards,
