I agree with all that. Having the listener apply whatever the EQ they need is always right. And if it's just a straight two-mic-pair recording there also is a sort of a broad "taper documentation / comparison" argument for not EQing. I'm not opposed to going against that to make for a more enjoyable recording, but if I do, I want to be careful about what changes I make.
While that argument also applies here to where we are critiquing the OMT technique ourselves and our implementations of it as much as enjoying the end results, I feel it applies less broadly to OMT recordings released to the outside world, simply because by mixing multiple mic channels down to stereo in we are already engaging in a degree of taper trickery that veers away from the "straight traditional taper documentation mode" of doing things.
I've gravitated to the mics I'm currently using in part because most of the time they naturally work well in these arrays without needing EQ. I know I can make it sound even better by applying careful EQ, but rarely end up doing it - partly because doing so is a hassle, partly because its a challenge to make sure my EQ choices will translate as intended. But knowing what is possible and where I can take it to make it as good as possible is important to me. And sometimes corrections are necessary and making them becomes the right thing to do. I see it as sort of a Goldilocks situation: In addition to the things best left for listeners to fix for themselves, there are things that can be fixed, things that should be fixed, and things best left alone.
Personally, while my ultimate goal is a recording that's well mastered so that a listener would only need to EQ to suit their playback system and listening preference, and such mastering also includes dynamics, imaging tweaks, whatever.. that shooting for perfection effort isn't happening often.
I instead shoot for setting things up to work well enough using only the simple mixer built-into the recorder, and if I can get that to happen I'm happy. Not perfectly mastered, but good enough that only a bit of simple EQ correction, ideally via simple tone controls gets it close enough to where it needs to be for enjoyable listening.
Some recordings are more of mess and require more complex correction, more than a listener would normally be expected to make and I feel those are best fixed before getting to the listener. Maybe they require more "surgical" EQ rather than a broad correction, or EQ to only to one set of mic channels and not the others, or different opposing EQs on different channel pairs, or whatever.
The ones that aren't a total disaster without complex correction, but also are not right enough to be enjoyable after a simple tone control / graphic EQ correction are the ones where I sometimes struggle with the decision of what to do or not.
200+ show GD project
These decisions become more poignant when working on big projects and other taper's recordings. Handling big numbers of shows like that requires doing less simply for practical as well as philosophical reasons. Is a lot less difficult to make a big effort when working on just a handful of one's own recordings, and even then it can be challenging to know how far to take it.
