Can a great system make a mediocre recording sound good?

complicated subject, not strictly GI/GO but close enough to it to make finding a happy medium a protracted and almost [but not quite] Sisyphean task.  you need a system [not just a speaker setup but your equipment and room] that accentuates euphony in a useful way. in a large room, properly set-up Vandy 1Ci or 2Ce speakers will make harsh recordings sound markedly less harsh, at not a great cost to ultimate clarity, but NOT in a small room where one can't be at least 10' from those speakers with those speakers not further than 3' from any wall - in this circumstance poor recordings sounded shouty and harsh.  the local mag hifi stores found their vienna acoustics speakers big sellers for a similar reason, folks with money and big listening rooms found them to be mellow but clear enough, with a wide variety of music. these speakers didn't image quite as well as the vandys but had a somewhat wider sweet spot. the speakers i settled with, a pair of thiel cs.5 minitowers, struck a good balance plus are surprisingly forgiving of poor room acoustics/room dimensions, they sound generally on the sweet/mellow side of neutral, and they image excellently no matter what, with minor image width/density differences noted upon their degree of toe-in. my maggie SMGs also were among the more mellow sounding speakers i've had over a wide variety of music. they did not seem to sacrifice a lot of clarity in well-made recordings, on the best recordings they presented "another room within the room" type of reality, like their larger brethren. these speakers also did not require a big room, a typical spare bedroom was enough for them.