Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

beheme-it isn't a so called 'audiophile recording'. like most modern recordings, it is however meant to be enjoyed on a quality playback system. the 'notion' that 'the better a system is-the worse most cd's and lp's sound' is about all any consumer has left to hang their hat on, when they find themselves with tens of thousands of dollars in equipment that they can't enjoy anything on. accurately reproducing the recording and enjoying the music are not different goals. no recording engineer sets out to make peoples ears bleed. unfortunately most high end speaker designs are not made to be listened to for hours on end. they are built specifically to impress a potential buyer using an audiophile quality recording. one that does not really 'test' the speakers at all. loudspeakers that do not favor one frequency over another, and maintain that balance with any ss or tube amp make just about any commercial recording listenable. ar, allison,hales,avalon,ohm,gradient,shahinian,castle,harmonic precision,harbeth,snell(the originals)chapman,enigma,totem,duntech,etc. are just a sample of speakers that are well engineered at all pricepoints. if you can't enjoy the history of recorded music from the dawn of high fidelity until today, you've got a problem that no amount of tweeking and component changing(other than speakers) can solve. those pearl jam recordings are not only historically significent-they rock. giving up the history of rock music alone based on a demo with a patricia barber or jennifer warnes cd(which don't sound bad even on a boombox)is nothing short of a bad purchase.

if you buy junk out of the bargain bin thinking it is real music, you are apt to buy awful speakers thinking they are well engineered.

sorry....one more thing, the origin of prat is from a marketing dept. you can't argue with an intangible_marketing 101

Gargage in, garbage out...
It all starts with the recording process and no amount of money you throw at a system can change the original recording.

perfectionist is right. your stereo should accurately capture the performance and the recording itself. most recordings are meant to sound 'like recordings'. does anyone really think bernstein or the beatles and thousands of relavent recording artists were/are even concerned about 'air' and 'warmth' and all the other bs terms that equipment mongers use. a good stereo system makes you want to own the world's largest music collection. if you spend all your time worrying about each recording being a sonic wonder, you need a doctor, not an upgrade. to paraphrase woody guthie...'some men rob you with a gun, others with interconnects'.......for the most part neither man winds up being a scientist,an engineer, or even a music lover.