With an accurate system, you have to get to your head into "context" to enjoy them. Many recordings of particular era are limited by technology and share a family sound- say English recordings of the 70s and early 80s or US recordings of the 60s/70s or 80s. Motown records are a great example of a shared sound. There are some notable exceptions of the era, records that sound very raw. and unprocessed. Satana's first album comes to mind on a good system!
Can a great system make a mediocre recording sound good?
I spend a lot of time searching for well produced recordings as they (of course) sound so good on my system (Hegel 160 + Linn Majik 140 speakers). I can't tolerate poor sounding recordings - regardless of the quality of the performance itself. I was at a high end audio store yesterday and the sales person took the position that a really high-end system can make even mediocre recordings sound good. Agree?