Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

nobody has defined what a good system is.

if one assumes it means as accurate as one can afford, then such a system is at the mercy of the recording.

a bad recording can sound brutal and a great recording can be sublime. thus, one may suffer the extremes of bliss and misery.

for me, i don't want to suffer when listening to bad recordings. i believe in the law of the golden mean.

life is too short to have unpleasant experiences. if it is not hifi then so be it.

nobody has defined what a good system is.

A good system does what the audiophile wants it to do given a particular price point.

Of course, most audiophiles have no system goals and end up in a perpetual equipment swap, not unlike a dog chasing its own tail.

Am I good or what?

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Psychic: :)
Not far from the truth (if at all far...)!!

if one assumes it ("good system") means as accurate as one can afford, then such a system is at the mercy of the recording

I would qualify this to "accurate to the point source".

I like such a system. And bad recordings sound worse -- but one can still enjoy the music; I don't suffer.

gentlemen, the choice is between production and reproduction. when it comes to sound quality, no stereo system is good or bad in an absolute sense.

it is only bad or good reative to a set of criteria established by anyone.

accuracy is just one criterion for evaluating stereo systems. it is not a necessary condition for a high quality stereo system, but is rather the conventional wisdom of most experts and many audiophiles. still there is no right and wrong with respect to aesthetic endavors. they don't follow the laws of logic. It's just a matter of pleasure or the lack of it. live and let live and let the individual decide for him or herself whether a stereo system should be a clear window of the recording, or an opportunity for creating a result which is consonant with personal taste.

according to a new stereophile poll, most audiophiles spend less on prerecorded music than a kid earns on a paper route. this speaks volumes about how twisted our collective goals are when we are spending far more on cables and equipment.