Should a good system sound bad with bad recording?

10-23-06: Gawdbless
If one has to resort to buying 'remastered' or.. ageing groups/recording companies wanting to make a bit more cash, by fooling punters that this latest 'souped up' (more eq on the mid) version is better than the old version...

Hello, my name is Tvad, and I'm a Punter. I own several remastered CD's. Some of the recordings I own on first generation CD, and a few I originally owned on vinyl. In most cases, but not all, the remasters are clearer with less tape hiss, have better dynamics from top to bottom, and generally possess larger stereo images as a result of the remastering.

>>A bad recording can sound good through a well balanced hi-fi system<<

Sorry but I really don't buy into that. A bad recording sounds bad. It sounds bad on a good system and it sounds bad on a bad system. However, it sounds less bad on a good system than it does on a bad system.

My bad.

One of the goals I set for my system was to "successfully play any recording of any musical genre regardless of recording quality". My system does that yet is revealling enough to tell the diffrences in cryo treatment facilities of the same model power cord and to be used for Beta testing for a couple high end small audio firms. Of course, a mediocre recording won’t sound as good as a great one. However, in a well set up system, great performances will convey the spirit and intensity of the music regardless of recording quality. As system quality goes up it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve this. I've spoken to Sean & Albert Porter about this subject. Mr. Porter has told me that his system can do what mine does (but at a whole different performance level, of course). He also agrees that doing so becomes increasingly difficult as system quality inncreases. After a change and/or addition, it's taken him sometimes a whole month of tuning and tweaking to get the system to perform in such a fashion again.

That, my young (and not so young) padwans, is the real challenge in the audio hobby.

With psychic power and primal intensity,

Hi Tvad nice to meet you. I have a couple of questions for you. Why was the production quality of the first generation cd's produced sounding duff? And has our hi-fi systems improved so much that early cd's now sound bad?
I also consider myself a compulsive music punter also, by the way.

Here Here, Psychicanimal.