Yes. Still, also if one would measure the response curves of the sound reproductions of most of mass media available to most of the listeners, one would again find that the curves are never flat.
And there are indeed a lot of devices that behave worse in the range related to female voices than to some bass voice ranges. Even the so called Hi-Fi equipment is never "flat" (i.e. it never passes different frequencies the same). A lot of people claim to prefer stronger basses, a lot of products are made to amplify them more, and even relative expensive speakers can sound worse for female voice frequency ranges. Not to mention that most of the conditions where the sound is eventually heard are extremely far from the conditions under which the products are evaluated by the reviewers.
I listen to a lot of music on my stereo, including many female singers with lovely voices, and do not notice any bias or shrillness in them, nor with any of the higher pitched instruments.
I have a counterexample which I think is more telling: never when I listen to music I recognize the relevant bias in sound equipment or sound engineering, it is when I listen movies that I do, and I observe it especially when I listen to non-English female voices (which I indeed happen to listen a lot, living where I live). But I'm sure that I'm not only one who notice that, as well as I am sure that not everybody's going to experience it, as there are multiple factors that allow me to be able to claim that. Human hearing has a complex response curves itself, and age and different other conditions result in specific curves among some people, which makes me unfortunate enough to be one of those who are more aware of the limitations of the sound equipment and of the ways the sound is processed by the professionals.
Once one is affected, one can more easily recognize that even professionals are aware of many aspects the sound is not "how it should be" but that the resulting sound is not the same as the "real thing" and also not "optimally adjusted" for the final listening conditions.
Sound engineering, to those who aren't doing it, appears to be "simple", and it's true that today we have much more good processing capabilities than in the days of only analog devices, but even now there are many issues that greatly influence the end result. And as I mentioned, not all languages and all fashions affecting how people speak are the same, resulting in different aspects affecting different people differently.
Did you know, for example, that women and men, on average, but even more significantly in the "tails" of distribution not only have different voice characteristics (how they produce the sound) but also different response curves, that is, that they hear the sounds differently?
I don't dispute any of that. What I don't buy, however, is that there's some electronic conspiracy among sound engineers to make women's voices sound bad. I don't buy that powerful female artists (like Madonna) would put up with that. I don't buy that the record companies, who want to sell those records by female artists, would put up with that.
Lastly, if it takes a highly trained ear to pick up differences, then the difference is not material to the public and it's an ineffective conspiracy (assuming there is one).
> What I don't buy, however, is that there's some electronic conspiracy among sound engineers to make women's voices sound bad
It's not claiming "conspiracy" stating the facts that the sound transmission was almost always not optimized to produce best result for female voices and that male voices were more lucky. I studied electrical engineering and I can confirm that the simplified claims were taught as:
"voice frequency is 300 to 3400 Hz"
which effectively misses the higher frequencies that unfortunately disfavors understanding of female voices, but nobody learns that detail there:
or that most of the products sold for music also disfavor female voices versus the "bass effect" -- you'll find infinite amount of "bass boost" speakers and earphones (even those that claim they don't typically do that) and much less (I couldn't find any where it's even stated as a goal of the design) those that allow the best understanding of voices instead of distractedly "pumping" the bass line.
Using Madonna as an argument is weak. Compare how much actors earn compared to the actresses and how much actresses ever could influence the movie industry result. Music business is similar -- female artists are surely limited in what they can achieve regarding how their music is being played, and they surely can't change the preferences of the whole industries. I guarantee you that female voices come worse than they should even in modern times and especially in movies and TV (not in pop music) and that it can be easily heard by anybody who is interested in the topic.
Do your own research about what the "industry" spreads as a "common knowledge" and "what people want" as of today -- it's never real fidelity or a linear response. It's primarily "how can music sound louder than the competition." And "more bass."
Decades ago I knew an old sound engineer who always carried around his own amplifier and earphones to compensate his hearing loss. He was showing me his own measurements (graphs), and how almost everything claiming by the producers of the earphones were lies (exactly regarding fidelity). He worked really hard to select the earphones that worked "correctly enough".
