Old song do again

More of the same-- with more to come-- this bit moved to the front page from comments....

I recently read an article in some Music Journal about this (I'll try to remember which one.) It was a poorly designed "experiment" but their findings we're interesting none the less. Some Mid-west University Choral group made 2 recordings-- one where the singers sang with a good singer's formant response and the other with the singers formant taken out in the "choral technique" taught at their school. Then they did a survey and asked which people liked better. "Overall" (their methodology was deeply flawed) 55% or so of participants preferred the "choral" example. However when they broke down their findings:

Listeners with no musical training slightly preferred the "operatic" example.

Listeners with Instrumental training strongly preferred the "operatic" example. The more musical training they had, the more they favored the "operatic example."

Only Listeners that were trained in the "choral tradition" of that school (the vast majority of survey participants-- hence the flaw) strongly preferred the "choral" example. And the more choral experience they had the more they favored this example.

This would seem to suggest that the "choral" sound is a learned preference... and quite an "acquired taste."