I'd do the same thing when someone brings a bottle of agonizingly bad wine over. I'd open a better bottle and let him see the difference. If he couldn't tell the difference, c'est la vie - end of discussion.
In the case of the audio end of things, I'd invite him to bring over the same record/CD he played and play it on each one of my three systems (which have slightly different strengths and weaknesses) and see what he hears.
He might turn out to be unable to detect differences (in which case, end of discussion), or they might jump out at him immediately and could start a discussion of why it was different. Either way, I'd avoid offending him. Telling someone that their system sucks is like saying his wife is ugly - no coming back from that!