At a first guess, it's upset by something in your current playlist. Try this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/empeg_state bs=128 count=1

...then ctrl-Ding to re-run the player. You will have lost your volume settings, current visual, etc.

If that still behaves the same, try this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda3 bs=1k count=16

...this is a bit more severe, but I *think* (from memory) it won't affect EQ, just the current playlist.

Hugo