Can a great system make a mediocre recording sound good?

If accuracy or transparency are the goals, an excellent system will actually show up poor recordings more.  Upgrade at your own risk.

A ’great system’ should not be additive, sound wise, to a recording. What it does do right is not become additive. A bright/harsh CD for instance, a very common thing, can sound better on a well executed system because with a poor system you are just adding more brightness/hash etc. FWIW, with some very careful planning you can get a ’great system’ going without spending ’great’ sums of money. FWIW.

@pesky_wabbit , I think that darn rabbit is on to something. +1

no simple answer.

it depends on why (we think) the recording is bad. a great system can unravel some recordings that a less capable system might interpret as hash or distortion.

a couple years ago, a friend of mine was listening with me, and i suggested we listen to this ’new’ artist, Billie Eilish, that i was really enjoying. my friend mentioned he liked the music but the recording was crap. so i played it.

my system was able to make sense to him of lots of big bass lines that his system could not. in his system it was just a wall of confusion. how can you judge the music, when it is demanding more of the system than the system can deliver?

that’s happened with some large scale classical too.

how able is any system to be able to handle all types of music? with effortless ease and complete authority? can the system stay natural, retain liquidity and continuousness? stay coherent and linear in the low frequencies?

this is why you need headroom in your power grid, your amplification, your resonance control, and your acoustics. it’s not easy to be able to honestly judge a recording.

A not so good recording stays a not so good recording.

How about this... It will sound  more acceptable in the "better" system.