Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

If good is taken as accurate then absolutely yes, of course it should sound bad

If good is taken as a nice sounding system with plenty of forgiveness, warmth and oodles of extra harmonic distortion in the bass and lower mid then NO.

A system that colors sound in a pleasing way can invariably make a bad recording sound passable. ( a good recording, however, will never shine as much )

Since the majority of recordings are mediocre or mastered for mediocre systems...selection of a system is a matter of opinion/choice and even a very accurate system has its limitations/drawbacks.

Many mastering engineers in studios with $100,000+ systems/facilities will still use something like Yamaha NS10's, just to see how their master will translate to a mediocre system. (the majority of systems can't properly handle the dynamics of lifelike music and lose balance)

Fortunately the odd one slips through....one where the mastering engineer has not been heavy handed with a soft limiter. Some genre's fair better than others.

the best recording with the worst system will sound better than the worst recording with the best system.

as Confucious might say....

BTW: I agree Mrtennis with you....at least to a certain point....An excellent recording however will NOT sound as good as a "judiciously compressed" recording on a mediocre system....this is why we have so much badly compressed recordings out there today and the so called "CD loudness wars". Producers & Mastering engineers know all to well what they are doing when they compress stuff for radio stations and car stereos. (They are deliberately producing something that sounds optimum on an average system. Often perceived loudness is a key criteria in defining a "good" recording for Producers who have a target market in mind; a target market dominated by owners of mediocre systems)

So what I am saying is that it is quite complex.

Those with high quality accurate systems suffer the most when listening to this badly compressed music as it is no longer optimum for their system and the music is notably compressed when compared to a good recording.

Those with poor quality systems suffer the most when listening to high quality recordings with large dynamic range, as it is no longer optimum for their system; as the listener turns up the volume to hear the "softer" sounds or detail then distortion and compression affects louder sounds and often the the balance is lost, resulting in less clarity.

In my experience, these effects are most obvious on your average movie DVD, which typically has much better dynamic range than most pop music; on mediocre systems most people will struggle to hear the dialogue until the volume is turned up rather too loud and at which point the loud parts are often distorted (this is often because the speaker cannot properly produce low level sounds accurately; these speakers that tend to have an optimum but limited sound level range or sweet spot)

Gawdbless,

One system I played it through at the show the speakers alone were $55000 and sounded well and truely awful (I am being polite). If quality costs money, why can't 'proper' systems do it?. My cheapo pc speakers can!

Read my previous post for a possible explanation why you have observed that cheapo speakers actually sound better than a $55,000 system on certain recordings. (Of course not all extremely expensive systems are extremely good.....at that level most are at least very good.....although some at that level look extremely exotic and weird, a visual statement that sounds awful but looks impressive....a shrine to oogle and gloat over, which fits what some people are looking for....like cars with "go faster" aerofoils and "go faster" wheel hubs, more often cosmetic rather than functional in design.)

your example would apply to some cases but there are many instances where dynamic range is not an issue, especially classical, non orchestra music.
Mrtennis (Threads | Answers)

Most live music has abundant dynamic range ...much more than an average from 75 to 80 db. An unamplified grand piano goes up to around 110 db on peaks or crescendos. Drums, tympany, brass all can go from extremely loud to soft. So while you may listen quietly to stereo or from a distance at a concert ....it is the lack of dynamics that often distinguish stereo system playback from live real music....real instruments.

i value my ears too much to listen beyond 85 db.

... what i am trying to say is it depends upon preference and your choice of music.

Good point.

My point was that most real world instruments/orchestra/band go significantly louder than 85 db and a good sytem should replicate this stuff too (not just the soft music)