Something to consider when making statements such as 'a great system will never make a good recording, or a poor one, sound great'. This may be true, BUT consider that a lot of audiophiles like to tune their systems to get revealatory or detailed sound, but end up with a bright upper mid-range concurrent with eviserated upper bass/lower mod range. This will often, initially at least, give them the impression of increased detail etc, but ultimately it grows fatiguing.
More often than not, I think, this occurs when the audiophile buys and daisy chains a lot of components which have been tuned by the manufacturers to emphasize 'detail', individually not by much but cumulatively excessive.
An excellent recording on such a system can sound cold, sterile, bright, fatiguing, etc. A recording which sounds great on such a system might just sound congested and dull on a more balanced system, one that is not just jazzed up to impress the novice trying to achieve a goal such as infinite resolution. Well, almost infinite. :-)
FWIW, I would prefer to tune my system to sound best when playing the majority of my recordings, not just the few SOTA/Audiophile ones, that IMHO rarely have performances of music of any lasting value. There are a few, just dammed few.
Incidentially, we all do tune our systems. Some just wish to call it synergy, or take credit for their advanced wisdom which allows them to identify and put together in an ideal room perfect components.
More often than not, I think, this occurs when the audiophile buys and daisy chains a lot of components which have been tuned by the manufacturers to emphasize 'detail', individually not by much but cumulatively excessive.
An excellent recording on such a system can sound cold, sterile, bright, fatiguing, etc. A recording which sounds great on such a system might just sound congested and dull on a more balanced system, one that is not just jazzed up to impress the novice trying to achieve a goal such as infinite resolution. Well, almost infinite. :-)
FWIW, I would prefer to tune my system to sound best when playing the majority of my recordings, not just the few SOTA/Audiophile ones, that IMHO rarely have performances of music of any lasting value. There are a few, just dammed few.
Incidentially, we all do tune our systems. Some just wish to call it synergy, or take credit for their advanced wisdom which allows them to identify and put together in an ideal room perfect components.