Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

I agree on the garbage in/garbage out factor. If you have a revealing system it will reveal the garbage or reveal the quality of what's being played.

Slappy, my friend is actually a Chef in a respected restaurant in Montreal so I will pass your comment to him, I am sure this will wipe the residual smile he may have thinking my system is mediocre!!!

I've heard (and had) gear that made bad recordings unlistenable. Playing bad recordings through my current set up is more than tolerable. I actually have a fairly large collection of recordings that are recorded very poorly- and while my system never fools me into thinking these are gems, they are still listenable and never harsh or fatiguing.

Will

I can't disagree with a good system being more revealing, but on the other hand one of the traps of this hobby is having a system that pushes you into "audiophile" recordings, or otherwise limits your enjoyment of the huge catalogue of great music available. A really musical system will of course sound great with good recordings, but should also allow you to relish music in whatever form available. If you find yourself listening to "Famous Blue Raincoat" and 10 other Lp's/CD's in your collection over and over again, something is very wrong.