Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

a stereo system is as strong as its weakest link. most stereo systems sound pretty good with good to very good recordings.

it is the better stereo system which can sound good with bad recordings.

Yes. The better the system the better ALL recordings will be.

the better the recordings, the better the system will sound. it all starts with the source.

however, some so called bad recordings are not that bad. it is the stereo system that is flawed.

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.

Maybe this is a trick question and I'm not getting it but shouldn't a "bad" recording sound bad on the best of systems and worse on lesser equipment?

'Splain it to me Lucy.