Headphone sound preferences vary by gender, age, and listening experience

Evidence

Female listeners preferred on average about 1 dB less bass and 2 dB less treble than their male counterparts. Younger and less experienced listeners preferred more bass and treble than their older, more experienced counterparts. The older listeners (55+ years) were the exception here, preferring significantly more treble and less bass, consistent with their preference for headphone HP2 that has less bass and more treble than the other three models. Altogether, these findings suggest that a single headphone target may not be sufficient to satisfy variations in the recordings, individual tastes, listening experience, and hearing loss. A simple solution is to provide simple bass and treble controls that allow listeners to compensate for these variations. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1795

Sixty-nine percent of the males in the study are members of Class 1 (Harman Target Lovers) compared with 56% of females. Class 1 has roughly equal representation from trained (70%) and untrained (65%) listeners. Class 2 (More Bass Is Better) has the fewest members overall and is represented by all categories except female; only 4% of females tested want more bass than the Harman target provides. Class 3 (Less Bass Is Better) members are disproportionately represented by females (40% of females are in this class vs. 13% of males) and listeners over the age of 50 (50%). Hearing loss may be a confounding factor here. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1801

Categorization

• SEED: The finding that older listeners (55+) prefer MORE treble and LESS bass is counterintuitive given age-related high-frequency hearing loss typically reduces perceived treble — this demographic reversal is an essay-worthy anomaly worth investigating.
• QUESTION: Why do older listeners prefer MORE treble when age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) typically attenuates high frequencies? Is this a compensation mechanism or something else?
• SHARE: A nerdy nugget for an audio engineer/head-fi acquaintance: the ‘more bass is better’ cluster contains essentially zero female listeners in the Harman study.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1795; Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1801