Can a great system make a mediocre recording sound good?

@larsman - thanks for that, but it was my pleasure : ) - and the acoustic venue I was referring to was not the listening venue, but the original venue the recording took place in - and this will have effect played back on headphones or speakers - more so on speakers/sound/room system for the greatest impact on perceived sound field perhaps, but the same issues of greater realism still apply to headphones : )

in friendship - kevin

I've found that most 'poor' recordings only sound poor because the system/room I was hearing them in was not good enough to translate the acoustics of the space the recording was made in. There are much fewer poor recordings than we generally believe exist; and more poor systems/rooms that make us believe the recording was poor. The best sound/room systems accurately allow the decay and reverberation of the recordings to complete what we understand as the soundstage, such that what once sounded like a poor recording was merely an inaccurate or incomplete playback of the uniquely altered sound of instruments and music in the specific venue of the original recording. 

In friendship, kevin.

@larsman - im not sure that I fully understand your question, but let me give it a shot - what I mean is that it is very easy to determine what a good recording is, because it will sound good, even on lesser sound/room systems. On the other hand, it is very difficult to determine if a recording is actually poor, because every level up the chain of resolving sound/room systems will bring ever smaller changes that will reveal ever more information regarding the subtle acoustics of the recording venue, ie, making the particular track sound more realistic, in bringing you to the place where the recording happened. For many of us, ‘good’ resides purely in the accuracy of instrument or voice reproduction as timbre and tone, timing, and what we like to refer to as the lowest amount of signal distortion. I have found that a better way of putting it has to include ‘….the accuracy of instrument and voice reproduction in the specific venue of the actual recording’ for the simple fact that almost every recording venue subtly (or unsubtly) changes the sound signatures of voice and instrumentation. A good example of unsubtle change can be found in Yukie Nagai’s last movement of Beethoven’s moonlight sonata, where better systems are able to parse the echo of the recording venue in transforming the somewhat ‘clouded’ sound that masks the venue on poor sound/room systems. A considerably more difficult recording to translate is Delia Fischer’s ‘choro de pai’, a small ensemble track that had the recording equipment placed such that the depth of field and separation of the instruments can only be heard on very very well power supplied and resolving sound/room systems. I am of the belief that the only truly bad recordings are the ones that have undergone so much post-production sound engineering so as to present parodies of the instruments, and of voices. A good example of this can be found in billy joel’s ‘New York state of mind’, but even so, it is still listenable with a better system. However, I have found that the bulk of what many refer to as ‘poor’ recordings are actually those among the likes of the Nagai and Fischer examples I gave - the Fischer example, especially, is one track I do not believe I have heard in all its nuance of recorded acoustic accuracy of venue, because of the greater depth of field, air, and separation I hear in it, with every greater sound/room system I have been lucky to hear it played back on.

My list of ‘poor’ recordings became eroded so much over time, I began to realise that in the world of unoverly sound engineered albums, there are actually very few recordings I should dismiss as bad, for the reason my sound/room system may not (yet) be good enough to playback the subtlest cues of reverberation, decay and atmospheric quality that we call realism. It is for this reason that I said a truly poor recording is very difficult to identify.

in friendship, kevin.

Thank you for your kind words, mahgister : )