Can a great system make a mediocre recording sound good?

A great system makes a mediacore recording sound more mediacore.

A great system makes a mediacore recording sound more mediacore.

It is not so simple... Why?

Because there is the sound perception,

And with it the musical evaluation...

When the recording is "bad", you lost many information which are confused and missing ...But in a very good audio system in a very well controlled room, you will, you easrs/brain will decipher more acoustical cues from the recording and with the help of the room acoustic control, the recording improved acoustic translation will reveal a bit  "more"  about the way the recording is flawed and what is missing or confused...

Then the recording will not be perceived to be more  merely only mediocre but in the opposite more "interesting" and more informational acoustically .... Then you will forget more easily the acoustic because your music evaluation will be more easy...

A good system ONLY in an ordinary room perhaps will make mediocre recording more mediocre why?

Because good audio systen in uncontrolled room are often too much  "analysing" and the acoustical details kill the musical forest... But the same system in a controlled and well treated room relatively to it, will reveal more about soundstage, imaging, dynamic, timbre perception and even the ratio LEV/ASW will be better... Then your attention will focus more easily on the music ...

The acoustic perception being improved, musical evaluation will become easier...

Then in conclusion: If an audio system made mediocre recording always worst, of two things one : your system is too analytic or badly flawed or of your system is good but the room is not well treated nor well mecanichally controlled and tuned for this specfic audio system....A good system in a bad room is easily harsh sounding, or too analytic, too resolving and not enough in phase with the room acoustic bass will not be ideal nor clear for example etc....

In a word, a good system in a well optimized room dont make "bad" recording good one, but make "bad" recording " interesting" one, more easy to decipher then it will be  way more easier for your focus and attention  to shift  on the music forgetting what is distorted  information only or missing  in  the sound...

I’ be been puzzling over this for years. One thing to help is to remember everyone on the other side, engineers, mixers, etc have all the control over this ‘Art’ they create. However, they can compromise for their perceived audience. Like any Art, a movie may be perfect for the cinema, but viewed from home may lack engagement or miss subtleties. If you can build your system toward coherence, soundstaging and try to get the bass right, then most recordings sound great. Some reveal real surprises, much as the artists intended. If the system is too imbalanced it can misemphasizes all those subtleties as irritants which is indeed hard to listen to. Most of these are dimensional cues and reverberations of the instruments, most ‘good sounding’ recordings isolate everything to remove any unwanted reverberations then add it back artificially. Musicians in a real room and all those reverberations actually sound good, so almost all blues and jazz and classical sounds fine. Rock is the culprit.  A car for example may be a good place to listen to that stuff because there’s so much competition you tend not to focus in those subtleties which make it more enjoyable. 

I think I said the same thing as @mahgister ha!

I think I said the same thing as @mahgister ha!

Yes we are on the same page...But you dont said exactlky the same thing...

But you add something very important which is one of the reason i did not listen rock music or pop... Unnatural studio mixing sound...

Then my observation from my last post was lacking this very important observation of yours that has nothing to do with the relation between an audio system and the room : the unnatural mixing technique in popular music... i forgot that most people listen much rock/pop ... 😁😊

You reminded me, and you are right to do so, that rock/pop is not classical nor jazz acoustically speaking...

I do not thought about that because i never listen rock/pop at all... 😁😊

My post is an example of a statement which cannot be completely right and can be misleading  because we dont listen all and everyone the same music genre...Then i correct here my last post because it can be acoustically misleading...

Then i will rewrite my post adding this : If some "bad" recording sound worst after you improve a piece of gear or the relation with the room, it is because gear or the relation with the room is not optimal at all...

But my observation is valid to all "naturally" recorded music with not much mixing...

In the case of pop/rock i dont think that my system room will improve a "bad" recording at all, in the contrary they will be worst, because it is the "bad" tricks of the mix which will become more disturbinglay audible in rock/pop music instead of the "natural" acoustical cues which are always improved by an optimized system/room relation in the case of a jazz or classical record album...

In this case only, "bad" recording may sound more acoustically interesting instead of worse when we improved the relation between the system/room....There is way less mixing imbalance to disturb our listening in jazz and classical...Almost all instruments are acoustical instruments not electrical one save by exception...

Then thanks for your post very important correction about mine...

All musical genres are not acoustically equal indeed....

my best to you ...

Most of these are dimensional cues and reverberations of the instruments, most ‘good sounding’ recordings isolate everything to remove any unwanted reverberations then add it back artificially. Musicians in a real room and all those reverberations actually sound good, so almost all blues and jazz and classical sounds fine. Rock is the culprit.