In Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 512, 80 L. Ed. 2d 502, 104 S. Ct. 1949 (1984), the Supreme Court considered a manufacturer's claim that a Consumer Reports article describing a new Bose speaker system disparaged the product. The district court had ruled that the article falsely stated as fact that "instruments heard through the Bose system 'tended to wander about the room,'" and rendered judgment for Bose, the manufacturer. Bose, 466 U.S. at 488. Applying the New York Times' actual-malice standard, the Supreme Court rendered judgment for the publisher. The Court observed that the circuit court correctly concluded "that there is a significant difference between proof of actual malice and mere proof of falsity." Id. at 511. The district court had found that the writer's actual perception was that sound moved "along the wall" rather than "about the room." Id. Nevertheless, the Court held that the writer's choice of language, though reflecting a misconception, does not place the speech beyond the outer limits of the First Amendment's broad protective umbrella . . . . The statement in this case represents the sort of inaccuracy that is commonplace in the forum of robust debate to which the New York Times rule applies. . . . "Realistically,. . . some error is inevitable; and the difficulties of separating fact from fiction convinced the Court in New York Times and other cases to limit liability to instances where some degree of culpability is present in order to eliminate the risk of undue self-censorship and the suppression of truthful material." Id. at 513. In Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of the United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 510-11, 80 L. Ed. 2d 502, 104 S. Ct. 1949 (1984) the United States Supreme Court held that, in First Amendment cases, a finding of "actual malice" must be supported by clear and convincing proof to satisfy due process. The Court adopted a standard of appellate review that required "judges, as expositors of the Constitution, must ind'ependently decide whether the evidence in the record is sufficient to cross the constitutional threshold that bars the entry of any judgment that is not supported by clear and convincing proof of 'actual malice'." In Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U.S. 485 (1984) a writer for Consumer Reports described a Bose sound system as making instruments sound as if they were "wandering about the room." Bose sued for product disparagement. At trial, the writer testified that the system actually made instruments sound as if they were moving along the wall, which he said meant the same thing as what he had published. The trial court found that the two descriptions were plainly at odds, that the published comment was false, that the defendant's efforts at trial to explain away the error showed actual malice, and that Bose should recover about $ 125,000 in actual damages. The Supreme Court agreed with the court of appeals' reversal of the judgment, concluding that the writer's adoption of a new description of the system at trial proved only that he had "a capacity for rationalization", not that he knew he was wrong at the time he first reviewed the sound system. The earlier description merely "reflected a misconception," the Supreme Court said, which was not the equivalent of actual malice.