Silence is a very poor control indeed! We absolutely test against other music. For internal R&D we've tested against 'focus music' taken from other services, but this is not necessarily something you want to do in an academic paper.

Instead, in a paper we're working on, we take the even more controlled approach of testing music that is exactly the same, except for the addition of particular kinds of processing (this work is in prep for submission).

The question of preference and genre is very important for effectiveness, and people differ enormously. We try to offer a wide enough variety so people can select what works best for them in terms of musical style.

But no matter what the genre, Brain.fm's techniques are applied to make that music more suited to the task at hand.

For example, we do offer a selection of Brain.fm-ified Bach (in the Classical Focus section, under 'more music' in the web app). I love Bach but find it distracting when I'm trying to focus. Brain.fm processing removes some distraction while keeping the stimulating feel of the music.