Ok… I do believe this is related to having a default EQ preset stored. I just changed my default EQ setting to something very drastic. I saved it with a high pass at 8kHz and sure enough… when I load up a project, some of my tracks sound like they are high passed at 8kHz, even though they are actually set to high pass somewhere much lower, like 200Hz. A quick adjustment of the frequency setting up and back down restores the high pass to the correct frequency.
Is anyone using a default EQ preset and can they reproduce this?