Compromises (recording quality)

there is nothing wrong with owning some "band aids" to overcome the sonic deficits of some recordings. band aids include cables, anti resonant devices and accessories.

use only when necessary.

My$.02:
If it's a rock recording, usually there is only one version. If it's bad, you're sort of stuck with it. Sometimes an "audiophile remaster" can be had for more money, e.g. of Pink Floyd. This may or may not be more satisfying than the "regular" edition, since recording and mastering are somewhat subjective crafts.
If there's a classical piece I like, I try to find and buy different performances thereof. Sometimes I end up with a good recording of a performance that doesn't "sit right" with me. Sometimes I have a poor recording of a performance that I really wish were recorded better. And sometimes, crooned Goldilocks, pulling a spoonful out of Mama Bear's bowl...
cheers apo

It has taken me about 30 component changes but I finally have it so that poor recordings are recognizeably poor - but not irritating. It is very hard to balance transparency with forgiving sound but if you try hard enough, it can happen. I hear music like never before and I'm not afraid anymore to play something that might not have the best engineering backing it.

Although I admit to making use of my C42's EQ to help out the bad recordings. It's necessary to keep great recordings sounding great because no system should try to please everything. That would be too much of a compromise IMO.

Arthur

Albert, I could not have said it better. I only buy well performed music regardless of the sound quality. My system even makes the bad sounding ones listenable.

I have never gone for an "audiophile" sound. Take all the various terms like staging, transparency, depth, detailed, etc, etc. I have never been in a live music setting where the sound was as perfect as the systems people build. If there is something I go for that is defined in audio terms, it would be PRAT (pace, rhythm and timing); better known simply as music.

Let me play the devils advocate...

Are some actually suggesting that you dumb down a system so it can play bad recordings passably...disguise them by changing the sound through added distortion or fundamental changes in tonality or timbre?

The tail wagging the dog!

A system not based on accurate sound reproduction but one that sugar coats and candy wraps bad recordings. In essence more recordings will sound alike. Differences between recordings will all suffer from sugar coating; far less evident differences from track to track, recording to recording; blemishes smoothed away like the artist's air-brush in playboy. A dream world of syrupy pleasant sound...but totally out of touch with reality.

Surely this is mediocrity?