Thesis Interim Report - Assessing the Superiority of High-Quality Studio Headphones

Assessing Superiority of Studio Headphones

Israel Edery

Advisor: Prof. Natalie Kacinik, Ph.D.

PSYC 5001 Independent Research

Fall 2022

Department of Psychology

Brooklyn College of The City University of New York

Honors Thesis Interim Report

Author’s Note

Different aspects of this report are more attributable to either Dr. Kacinik or myself. You will see me going back and forth between “I decided” and “we chose to…” When I use the term “we” it means that the portion being discussed is largely attributable to Dr. Kacinik’s guidance and assistance.

Assessing the Superiority of Studio Headphones

Introduction

In exploring underlying emotions that contribute to positive experiences of art, Eskine, K. J., Kacinik, N. A., & Prinz, J. J. (2012) found that individuals in a state of fear rated visual art more positively than those in a state of happiness or physical arousal. This was established through an experiment with five conditions, each representative of a different kind/level of arousal. Eskine, et al. (2012) had one group of subjects watch a scary video clip, another group watch a happy video clip, the third and fourth do either 15 or 30 jumping jacks, and the final control group were asked to sit normally before viewing the pieces of art. Following these conditions, the subjects were asked to rate several pieces of abstract visual art. The results showed significantly higher positive judgements of the artwork from those in the fear induced condition.

The current experiment which is focused on the auditory music art form emerged from the Eskine, et al. (2012) finding that the variable “being in a state of fear” had an impact on how individuals responded to visual art. I began to think about potential variables that might contribute to positive music listening experiences. One variable that came to mind is the medium that is used when listening to music. More specifically, I wanted to know if listening to music with high-quality studio headphones elicits a stronger emotional reaction to a given musical composition. Furthermore, does the variable “type of headphones used” affect the average listener’s overall experience of music? Many spend hundreds of dollars when purchasing headphones for daily use, rendering questions regarding the worthiness of such investments relevant and applicable.

Research and Literature Review

For the purposes of this project, I chose to focus only on headphones typically used by professional musicians, composers, and artists for studio recording and close listening. These are different from many typical headphones used by the general public from companies like Beats, Apple, or JBL. To better understand why studio headphones can vary so much in price, I began by looking at commonly listed audio specifications of headphones.

A consistent specification that seemed to separate higher-end models from cheaper ones was “frequency range” or “frequency response.” I noticed that higher-priced headphones almost always featured a broader frequency range. In the process of looking at variations between headphones and how they contribute to the listener’s experience, I learned that many higher-end headphones feature frequency ranges that exceed the max and minimum detection ranges that typical humans possess. They are nevertheless regarded as better headphones by the audio industry since they provide better overall dynamic sound delivery. It was clear that significant variation existed in headphone specs and prices, however, whether these differences had significant, discernible, implications on the average non-musician’s overall experience of music and their emotional response to it, was still unclear.

Unsure about the implication of the independent variable “headphone quality” on the dependent variable “listener’s experience,” I used Google Scholar, PsycINFO, and Brooklyn College Library Databases to see if any prior research existed on the subject. Examples of keywords I used in my search are sound quality, headphones, psychoacoustics, music and emotion, and frequency response. I found that although there is substantial research in the general areas of music, emotion, audio perception, etc., there appeared to be little to no research to date addressing the impact of studio headphones on listening experience. 

Interestingly, although it seems that many researchers are aware that audio quality is important when listening to music, comparisons between levels of audio quality, or the implication of its significance does not seem to be well documented. A study examining contributing factors to getting the “chills” or “goose bumps” when listening to music (Grewe, O., Nagel, F., Kopiez, R., & Altenmüller, E., 2007) notes in the Apparatus and Procedure section the use of Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones in combination with a USB sound card. The purpose of using these internationally bestselling headphones (with over 23,000 positive ratings on amazon) that are normally priced higher than $150 and are on the mid-higher end of studio-headphones was most likely to retain audio quality. The same goes for the use of the USB sound card which often used for retaining the sound quality when transmitting it between various mediums (i.e., desktop > loudspeakers). I think this element of sound quality in a music-related experiment is noteworthy. In the instance of Grewe et al. (2007), it introduces the possibility that the superior sound delivery in their experiment may have impacted their findings.

Unlike Grewe et al. (2007), other studies related to musical preference omit the significance of the sound medium altogether. For instance, a study assessing potential relationships between personality traits and song preference took into account age and hearing deficits (Greenberg, D., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., Monteiro, B. L., Levitin, D. J., & Rentfrow, P. J. 2016). Greenberg et al. (2016) implemented a 65-year-old cut off, citing similar implementations in prior research by Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). However, albeit their attention to the hearing deficits issue, it appeared that Greenberg et al. (2016) did not consider that part of the data from their impressive N = 9,454 sample size, may have been impacted by the medium (i.e., cheap earphones vs. studio headphones) that was used to listen to the music. The goal of the current project is to explore the implication of listening to music via different mediums and perhaps shed light on how the results from this project might translate to other studies.

Experimental Design (Methods)

Creating a survey-based experiment with multiple conditions seemed the most sensible way to run a controlled experiment that would allow us to test and draw conclusions for the questions we wanted to address. The core idea was to have participants listen to the same pieces of music through different pairs of headphones - without knowing that one is of much higher price/quality - and rate both listening experiences. A third baseline condition was added to have a comparison base for the potential effects of the primary experimental conditions. Since there are multiple elements to the final experimental design, each containing its own reasoning, this section is divided up into smaller pieces.

Headphone Selection

In finding suitable headphones for this project, I wanted to find two pairs of headphones that differed as much as possible from each other yet were similar enough to go undetected by an average person who is not familiar with pro-audio gear. I investigated headphone models from many pro-audio companies including AKG, Beyerdynamic, Sony, Shure, and Sennheiser. Ultimately, I found the Audio-Technica ATH-M20 and M70 models to be most compatible for this experiment, since they appear similar, can easily go undetected by the average participant in this experiment, but are also vastly different in quality and price.

Song Selection

To control for the possibility that someone will resonate with a particular theme of a song more than others or that some may comprehend certain kinds of lyrics better than others, we decided to use songs without lyrics for all conditions. The songs we intend to use are similar to movie scores with complex yet clear instrumentation. I used a website called “artist.io” to find two suitable tracks for the experiment. This is a professional subscription-based website where composers lend their music to a wide range of artists. Part of the intention of using this website was to find music that is likely not familiar to the general public. Since it is possible that individuals might rate familiar songs more favorably, choosing less known music was our way to ensure that participant evaluations will not be influenced by prior exposure.

Control Questions

Since there are several potential issues that could affect the data we hope to collect, we compiled a set of questions to ask before and after the experiment to ensure validity of the data. These include questions regarding the subject’s hearing ability, familiarity with the compositions presented, and general musical skill and knowledge level. We also included more direct questions regarding the subject’s knowledge of the headphones that were used throughout the experiment.

Three Principal Conditions

The design is structured so that each participant will be required to partake in two sessions - each lasting approximately thirty minutes. In each of the three conditions, the participant will either use high-quality headphones, low-quality headphones, or a laptop speaker to listen to the assigned music. We are still finalizing how to structure the control group condition in terms of whether they will also need to do two sessions as well. During the thirty minutes, the participants will fill out a consent form, listen to two pieces of music, and fill out a survey questions designed to assess the subject’s emotional and overall reaction to the piece of music they just listened to (see appendix for full survey). Since participants will listen to two pieces of music per session (discussed in the next section) they will fill out the assessment survey following each composition they listen to.

Two Types of Compositions Per Experimental Condition

In addition to having the two primary conditions with the cheaper and more expensive headphones, I decided that within each condition, the participant would listen to two types of compositions - one paced and suspenseful, and the other more variable and upbeat. The purpose of this addition is for two reasons. First, to see if there is a potential difference in how individuals rate their experiences within each condition. For example, is it possible that people do give higher ratings when listening through high-quality headphones, but only when listening to slower paced songs? The second purpose for the added rhythm variable is to get an overall more robust body of data that we can use to assess the consistency of our results.

Within-Groups Comparison

I wanted to be able to compare the two experimental conditions, not across different individuals, but within individuals themselves. In other words, instead of comparing Jessica’s experience with the higher-quality headphones to John’s experience with the lower-quality ones, I wanted to compare Jessica’s experiences - under both conditions. To do so, we decided to have each participant do two separate sessions under the two principal conditions. Half of the participants will use the better headphones for the first session, while the other half will listen through the lower quality headphones first. This “counterbalancing” will ensure that the results do not reflect a basic comparison effect of participants listening to one type of headphone first.

Measuring Emotional Response

The assessment measure used by Eskine, et al. (2012) was a great starting point for types of questions that would indicate the extent of someone’s emotional response to a piece of music. The specific questions are still being finalized but it will likely be a Likert scale-type survey about how “dull, exciting, boring, moving…” the composition was. In these questions, we hope to target multiple emotional elements, ultimately giving us a good sense of the extent of each subject’s emotional reaction to the composition they just listened to.

Survey Based on Gricean Maxims

A well-known model used for assessing communication quality is based on the four Gricean maxims (Grice, 1975). This model breaks down human communication into quantity, quality, relation, and manner. Dolese and Kozbelt (2021) went on to establish that these maxims can also be used to assess the quality of visual art, which can be conceptualized as a form of communication between the artist and the art consumer. Based on a prior 62-item survey that utilized the four Gricean maxims, Dolese and Kozbelt (2021) created a modified 33-item survey using the four maxims plus an additional measure called “intent” that was geared toward visual art. With this 33-item list, Dolese and Kozbelt (2021) established consistency between the subject’s ratings, confirming the utility of these maxims in evaluating aesthetic liking.

For the purposes of this project, we wanted to narrow the list down even further and modify the questions so they can be compatible with assessing elements of music as an art form and a form of communication. To shorten the questionnaire, we removed any questions we felt were redundant or applied to visual art but not to music. Although the music we are using will not contain lyrics, we maintain that a musical composition, like a painting, is a form of communication between the artist and listener - conveying a specific mood or type of journey.

Our survey is currently between fifteen and eighteen questions, and we intend on keeping the number in this range. One noteworthy change that we implemented when working on the survey questionnaire was to try and make the questions the least suggestive possible. A simple diversion from the original 33-item survey that we applied to most questions, was removing the words “to what extent did you (enjoy x) ...” from the beginning of the questions. Instead, our questions begin with “did you find this composition to be…” This way we are not implying that they are supposed to like or dislike something, we are simply giving them an open-ended question about their experience.

Limitations

There are a few questions that arose during the formation of this project that we realized would not be feasible to address in this experiment yet are worth noting. On a clinical level which is beyond the scope of this project, I wondered - if studio headphones indeed deliver more accurate and defined sound, perhaps therapists doing telehealth are better off using higher-quality headphones. This way they can detect subtle nuances and emotions in their client’s voice that would otherwise go unnoticed. Also, since this project is focusing on music without words, it is beyond this thesis to address questions about how using studio headphones might impact listening to different types of music that do include lyrics. Similarly, is it possible that studio headphones produce a higher effect when listening to familiar music? Based on the results of the current project I hope that we may at least have a better sense of which of these questions are more relevant and worth further research.

Intentions for The Upcoming Semester

Following the progress from last semester finding the right survey questions, searching for suitable materials for the project including song choice and compatible headphones, and carefully working on a sound experimental design, we are ready for the next steps. My hope is to finalize the experimental design (focusing on how to handle the control condition), survey questions, and consent form within the next two weeks. Part of this will be to know the exact moment-to-moment of the experiment and make sure that our projected time for each condition is as expected. This also includes knowing the order in which each part of the survey questions will be presented.

After finalizing all pending items for the project, I intend on submitting the experiment to the IRB for approval. As soon as approval is obtained, I hope to recruit a minimum of thirty participants (though I understand that it might be less…) through the Brooklyn College Sona system to take part in the experiment. After gathering a substantial amount of data (based on how things go…) and running the relevant analyses, I will submit the complete process and final findings in the form of an Honors Thesis to the Brooklyn College Department of Psychology.

References

Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). Music through the ages: Trends in musical engagement and preferences from adolescence through middle adulthood. Journal of personality and social psychology, 105(4), 703.

Dolese, M. J., & Kozbelt, A. (2021). Art as communication: Fulfilling Gricean communication principles predicts aesthetic liking. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 15(4), 673–681. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000357

Eskine, K. J., Kacinik, N. A., & Prinz, J. J. (2012). Stirring images: Fear, not happiness or arousal, makes art more sublime. Emotion, 12(5), 1071–1074. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027200

Greenberg, D., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., Monteiro, B. L., Levitin, D. J., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2016). The Song Is You. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(6), 597–605. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616641473

Grewe, O., Nagel, F., Kopiez, R., & Altenmüller, E. (2007). Listening to music as a re-creative process: Physiological, psychological, and psychoacoustical correlates of chills and strong emotions. Music perception, 24(3), 297-314.

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics (Vol. 3, pp. 41–58). Academic Press.