Speakers and system for compressed recordings?

interesting topic. my experience has been it should not be a problem with the right setup and realistic expectations. without the second, you may be doomed to dissapointment.

"Motown sounds incredible on an AM transistor radio.'

Gotta disagree on that one. Motown never sounded better than remastered and on a good modern rig.

Iso,

Funny you say that because as I recall that is exactly correct!

Before I owned a real stereo, I would operate on the transistor radio and run the internal wire to the speaker to an external bigger speaker, whatever I could find. That was one of my first big steps up in sound! True story!

Seriously though, its only in the last few years I've actually discovered how good some of those old recordings heard mainly on am radio as a kid can really sound. Surprising good and very enjoyable!

I can echo Bondman' experience with lesser recordings and some of the design attributes of speakers that can help make even most lesser recordings very enjoyable on the terms that the engineers and producers who created them intended. Even holds true for 80-90% of modern loudness wars type CDs that many audiophiles may find unlistenable otherwise, although these offer some additional challenges in terms of power and clarity needed to deliver lots of loud dynamics and transients clearly and in a digestible manner that can often actually be quite tasty.