The purpose of this study was to assess the preferences of undergraduate college student auditors (N = 139) with respect to a choral sound produced in an anechoic chamber that included a fully resonate singer's formant and choral sound produced in the same chamber using a weaker singer's formant resonance. An ensemble comprised of graduate voice students (N = 8) sang four choral music excerpts in an anechoicchamber. Each excerpt was recorded twice. Singers first employed a full soloistic placement that resulted in a tone with strong upper resonance in the singers' formant range (2 kHz ­ 4 kHz). The same singers then employed a greatly reduced singer's formant resonance. Recordings were analyzed, then compiled into a stimulus recording for this study.

Auditor participants were randomly assigned to one of two listening groups. One group listened to six pairings each of two of the choral music excerpts for a total of twelve trials. For each excerpt, the order of presentation of the non-resonant version versus the resonant version was presented three times in one order and three times in the reverse order. Each of the six trials was randomized with the six trials from the second choral music excerpt. The same procedure was followed for the second two choral music excerpts. In each trial, subjects were asked to indicate that excerpt performed with the tone quality that they liked the best.

Responses were cross-tabulated according to participants' musical training: (a) college undergraduate choral or vocal music majors with choral training (N = 49), (b) college undergraduate music majors with instrumental training but no choral training (N = 47), and (c) college undergraduates with no music training (N = 43).

Results indicated a significant difference (p< .000) between preferences for non-resonant and resonant tone quality. Examination of the mean scores revealed that auditors overall preferred a non-resonant tone quality (M = 7.95) over a resonant tone quality (M = 4.05). When the three training groups were used as factors, a significant difference of (p < .000) was observed between the choral training group and the instrumental training group. There was also a significant difference (p = .001) between the choral training group and the no music training group. The difference between the instrumental training group and the no music training group was not significant (p = .998).

Such results appeared to suggest that not only did most auditors prefer a non-resonant choral tone to a resonant one, but also that choral training seemed to increase that preference. Although results were limited to the particular conditions, participants, and choral music excerpts of this study, these findings were discussed in terms of possible ramifications for choral pedagogy and directions for future research.