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I cannot trust the Harman speaker preference score

Do you value the Harman quality score?

  • 100% yes

  • It is a good metric that helps, but that's all

  • No, I don't

  • I don't have a decision


Results are only viewable after voting.

abdo123

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surely this counts for something. Wouldn't a speaker be expected to be docked marks for not reproducing sound down to around 40hz at sufficient levels.
Low frequency extension score or LFX score is the highest contributing component to the overall score.

But for the specific case of M2 vs KH80 the FR flaws are so grave in the M2 that the model determines that even with the reduced LFX of the KH80 it will be perfered by the public more than the M2 within linear excursion limits.
 

voodooless

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Within linear excursion limits is tipping the scales heavily in favour of the KH80 (or any other small speaker).
those limited are.. well.. very limiting:
1647179960648.jpeg
 

ROOSKIE

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It is what you think and it is more than just opinion: it is wrong. You completely misunderstood what Toole is advocating. (You seem to have an anti-researcher bias that leads you too hastily to “passionate disagreement” with them. Not sure why you are so inclined, but you are.)
Lemme get this straight.
Because of my comment about tone controls I have an anti researcher bias?
I'd also like to know where I have been hastily involved in "passionate disagreement" with researchers.
Can you find that out for me?
If you would be so kind as to assemble some evidence, you can PM if that keeps the thread clean.
You can easily read read my posts and pick out the ones that serve as evidence of that.

Beyond that you have simply emphasized my point.
I said
"Interesting.
I think that this is the ultimate sticking point for folks and one of the main crux's of audiophilia that Toole touches on in his book when he laments the the lack of basic tone controls on so much hifi gear.
He is alluding to the fact that in his worldview the content as it is, does not have to be idolized or stomached at the expense of pure enjoyment.
In any case I only care about enjoyment with regard to listening to music. It turns out it is very helpful and fun to deep dive into the subject of audio reproduction in order for me to enjoy myself fully. That said the goal for myself is enjoyment not ultimate "correctness or rightness" which can almost certainly never be achieved to everyone's satisfaction and are very debatable as to what they actually constitute in the 1st place. I am quite certain nearly everyone can enjoy themselves though, so I guess "rightness" for me is essentially directly measured by the level of enjoyment. So in other words I hope that you enjoy your search for sonic rightness as much or more than a parallel search for sonic pleasantness.
I do understand that HiFi more typically means accurate and not necessarily pleasant, that said if enjoyment consistently suffers I don't know if that is worth it."


You seem to be gaslighting me here friend, serving up a false narrative about my comments.
I said things like
-I think (my opinion)
-Ultimate sticking point (seems to be one in point of case here eh')
-Toole touches on it. I also used alluding.
-I said nothing about Toole not respecting the art, never even used the word respect. I did say "the content as it is, does not have to be idolized or stomached at the expense of pure enjoyment."

I am not misunderstanding Toole, he wants tone controls for a reason and that reason is that his music will sound better to him more often if he has them. Any adjust is a nod toward freeing from overly focusing on what I think is a farce, the quest for perfectly reproducing what is on the album. And that was my point, even Toole wants to season the sound vs stomaching accuracy - you can not make any adjustment without "altering the art". You going to call the artist as ask them to asses if the bass you turned up is closer to what they intended? (as a side my system does not have tone controls, but I sometimes wish it did)
It is not complicated.
Beside this was all in relation at the time to someone else talking about balancing "rightness" and "sounds good", additionally the flow of conversation was still dealing with the tangent of the correctness or incorrectness of room reflections.
I do not believe we need to turn our listening sessions into a quest for "total accuracy" (which is not IMHO a fixed target nor an easily agreeable one) at the expense of enjoyment.
I prefer "enjoyment". Nothing about this anti-research. The vast majority of the effort behind the research in Toole's book has been applied now toward finding out what people prefer as their is money in preferable products. It is not to preserve the art at the expense of typical preference and I have never seen anyone involved make such a claim.

The Harman score (as it is used here at ASR) is a prediction of preference made from data gathered from a beautiful assembly of subjective assessments with sighted and other key biases removed or at least drastically reduced. A collection of preferences averaged out. I certainly think in that data are some folks who valued enjoyment.
 
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Duke

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I can only remember seeing the Martin Logan speaker. Scored pretty low if I remember correctly.

View attachment 192058

Yes it did. It did have a preferred position which was outside the room unplugged

I have worked with hybrid electrostats including Martin Logans a bit, and one of their characteristics is that their spectral balance changes with distance. This is because the panel approximates line source behavior while the woofer approximates point source behavior. The SPL measurably and audibly falls off more slowly with distance from the panel than from the woofer. One solution would be the ability to adjust the relative volume level of panel and woofer, but that was not incorporated into early generation Martin Logans. Instead, Martin Logan offered several models of identical configuration but different size (and cost), the idea presumably being that you'd match the model to the room size. I think that Martin Logan model was way too small for that room and listening distance.

I'm not saying it didn't have other problems, but I think it was particularly unsuited for those listening test conditions.

In the mono/stereo test involving the Quads, imo the Quads were handicapped by two aspects of the test conditions: First, their spectrally-correct backwave energy was degraded by the absorptive material behind them which would have attenuated the short wavelengths; and second, the relatively short distance from the "front" wall would have resulted in the strong initial backwave reflection arriving too early. Imo with dipoles (and bipoles) the minimum distance from the "front" wall for good results would be about five feet, which I arrived at empirically two decades ago but it's also supported by this statement by David Griesinger: "Transients are not corrupted by reflections if the room [i.e. early-reflection-free time interval] is large enough - and 10ms of reflections free time is enough."


I can count on one hand the number of dipole and cardioid speakers I've tested in my career.

I would be VERY interested in anything you could share with us about those speakers.

In my opinion not all dipole speakers are created equal, just as not all monopole speakers are created equal. SoundLabs in particular might have been interesting, as they were designed to radiate uniformly across a 90-degree arc front and back, transitioning to the familiar dipole figure-8 at low frequencies, having sufficient panel area to give good bass response, and employing a technique to spread out the "drum head" diaphragm resonance frequencies of the individual cells.

Were the Mirage bipolar speakers that Floyd Toole liked so much ever evaluated by Harman? How about any other multidirectional designs (Shahinians, Acoustic Research "Magic" speakers, ESS, Ohms, MBLs)?

Thanks!
 
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MattHooper

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I would be very curious to see how the MBL omnis would have scored in the blind tests!
 

gnarly

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I’m not claiming that mono tests recreate stereo imagery in stereo tests. I’m arguing that a speaker that tests well in mono will test well in stereo. Floyd’s paper shows that spatial ratings in the stereo tests are quite variable and highly dependent on the recording.
I would add to the claim that a speaker that tests well in mono will test well in stereo,
by saying that a speaker that listens well in mono will listen well in stereo.

I do a lot of testing and listening in mono, stereo, and LCR using three identical speakers.
In addition, I test and listen to mono outdoors very frequently, and stereo occasionally.
Here's a snip of the presets currently is use for such:
qsys mode presets.JPG


There is no question in my mind that critical speaker evaluation is best done in mono, and best done outdoors.


I don't see how stereo can ever be fairly evaluated, due to the vagaries of rooms, recordings, individual presences for ambiance vs imaging, and radiation patterns of major types (point source, dipole, planar, open baffle, omni, line, etc.,
My guess is the evaluation impossibility will always exist for stereo, and multi-channel too, until a particular standard listening room design, ....size/acoustics/et al, is somehow adopted by the marketplace.

Hat's off to the work you guys accomplished evaluating mono.
The principles you came up with i trust fully :)
Preference algorithms/scores that have been pulled from them, can't say the same.
 

Sean Olive

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I have worked with hybrid electrostats including Martin Logans a bit, and one of their characteristics is that their spectral balance changes with distance. This is because the panel approximates line source behavior while the woofer approximates point source behavior. The SPL measurably and audibly falls off more slowly with distance from the panel than from the woofer. One solution would be the ability to adjust the relative volume level of panel and woofer, but that was not incorporated into early generation Martin Logans. Instead, Martin Logan offered several models of identical configuration but different size (and cost), the idea presumably being that you'd match the model to the room size. I think that Martin Logan model was way too small for that room and listening distance.

I'm not saying it didn't have other problems, but I think it was particularly unsuited for those listening test conditions.

In the mono/stereo test involving the Quads, imo the Quads were handicapped by two aspects of the test conditions: First, their spectrally-correct backwave energy was degraded by the absorptive material behind them which would have attenuated the short wavelengths; and second, the relatively short distance from the "front" wall would have resulted in the strong initial backwave reflection arriving too early. Imo with dipoles (and bipoles) the minimum distance from the "front" wall for good results would be about five feet, which I arrived at empirically two decades ago but it's also supported by this statement by David Griesinger: "Transients are not corrupted by reflections if the room [i.e. early-reflection-free time interval] is large enough - and 10ms of reflections free time is enough."




I would be VERY interested in anything you could share with us about those speakers.

In my opinion not all dipole speakers are created equal, just as not all monopole speakers are created equal. SoundLabs in particular might have been interesting, as they were designed to radiate uniformly across a 90-degree arc front and back, transitioning to the familiar dipole figure-8 at low frequencies, having sufficient panel area to give good bass response, and employing a technique to spread out the "drum head" diaphragm resonance frequencies of the individual cells.

Were the Mirage bipolar speakers that Floyd Toole liked so much ever evaluated by Harman? How about any other multidirectional designs (Shahinians, Acoustic Research "Magic" speakers, ESS, Ohms, MBLs)?

Thanks!
We've tested both large and smaller Martin Logan dipoles in the same room and got similar results. The listening test results are completely predictable by the anechoic spinorama measurements: poor octave-to -octave balance, resonances that are visible in many of the curves. The speaker is very directional and the balance changes as you move off-axis. It seems to sound worse as you sit more on-axis (it is too bright or harsh in the upper mids) but even off-axis, it sounds colored.

I have written about the subjective and objective measurements of these two loudspeakers: here ( https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2008/12/part-3-relationship-between-loudspeaker.html ) and here (https://seanolive.blogspot.com/search?q=Kids). The large ML ($11k a pair) is depicted as Speaker M in the first graphic below. In the second graphic the smaller ML ($3600 a pair) is depicted as speaker D. Both speakers were rated quite low by a large number of listeners. The subjective/objective measurements in the graph below are of taken from the video, which you can watch from the above link.

The back wall behind the loudspeaker in the MLL is NOT absorptive as you claim. It has drywall covered by black acoustically grille cloth to reduce light behind the speaker and make it less visible through the blind curtain.

The distance of the speaker mover from the back wall can be programmed in 1-inch increments from 0 to 4 feet, plus add another 6-8 inches to account for the gap between the mover and wall. So it comes close to your recommended 6 ft. The first wall reflection would arrive ~ 10 ms after the direct sound. So the issue you raise about distance from wall and absorption do not apply.

The listening distance is about 10 feet but we have evaluated it at further distances, and it does not better. As I said before, the off-axis positions improve the balance of the direct sound, and this is entirely explained by looking at the spin measurements where the early-reflection curves are more balanced.

I do agree that dipole speakers should not be judged based on the performance MLs. I'm quite sure that better designs would score higher in our tests.

We have tested speakers over the years that include dipoles (ML, Quad,) bipoles (e.g. Mirage), the AR Magic speaker where you could adjust the direct/reflected levels, Omni-directionals, and speakers with wide dispersion in the front hemisphere (BeoLabs with the acoustic lens). We have also tested some line arrays like the CBT Harman Kardon Radiance 2400. I have yet to find a case where the sound quality could not be predicted based on the spinorama measurements unless it had sufficiently audible distortion.

Martin Logan Large.png
Image 3-13-22 at 10.32 AM.jpeg
 
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Duke

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The back wall behind the loudspeaker in the MLL is NOT absorptive as you claim. It has drywall covered by black acoustically grille cloth to reduce light behind the speaker and make it less visible through the blind curtain. S

The distance of the speaker mover from the back wall can be programmed in 1-inch increments from 0 to 4 feet, plus add another 6-8 inches to account for the gap between the mover and wall. So it comes close to your recommended 6 ft. The first wall reflection would arrive ~ 10 ms after the direct sound. So the issue you raise about distance from wall and absorption do not apply.

I apologize for communicating poorly. My objections about absorptive material behind the speakers, and about (apparently) insufficient distance to the wall, were in regards to the mono/stereo test which included the Quads, as depicted on page 175 of the third edition of Floyd Toole's book. My understanding is that that test was not conducted in the shuffler room.

Thank you for your in-depth response.
 
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BoredErica

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We've tested both large and smaller Martin Logan dipoles in the same room and got similar results. The listening test results are completely predictable by the anechoic spinorama measurements: poor octave-to -octave balance, resonances that are visible in many of the curves. The speaker is very directional and the balance changes as you move off-axis. It seems to sound worse as you sit more on-axis (it is too bright or harsh in the upper mids) but even off-axis, it sounds colored.

I have written about the subjective and objective measurements of these two loudspeakers: here ( https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2008/12/part-3-relationship-between-loudspeaker.html ) and here (https://seanolive.blogspot.com/search?q=Kids). The large ML ($11k a pair) is depicted as Speaker M in the first graphic below. In the second graphic the smaller ML ($3600 a pair) is depicted as speaker D. Both speakers were rated quite low by a large number of listeners. The subjective/objective measurements in the graph below are of taken from the video, which you can watch from the above link.

The back wall behind the loudspeaker in the MLL is NOT absorptive as you claim. It has drywall covered by black acoustically grille cloth to reduce light behind the speaker and make it less visible through the blind curtain.

The distance of the speaker mover from the back wall can be programmed in 1-inch increments from 0 to 4 feet, plus add another 6-8 inches to account for the gap between the mover and wall. So it comes close to your recommended 6 ft. The first wall reflection would arrive ~ 10 ms after the direct sound. So the issue you raise about distance from wall and absorption do not apply.

The listening distance is about 10 feet but we have evaluated it at further distances, and it does not better. As I said before, the off-axis positions improve the balance of the direct sound, and this is entirely explained by looking at the spin measurements where the early-reflection curves are more balanced.

I do agree that dipole speakers should not be judged based on the performance MLs. I'm quite sure that better designs would score higher in our tests.

We have tested speakers over the years that include dipoles (ML, Quad,) bipoles (e.g. Mirage), the AR Magic speaker where you could adjust the direct/reflected levels, Omni-directionals, and speakers with wide dispersion in the front hemisphere (BeoLabs with the acoustic lens). We have also tested some line arrays like the CBT Harman Kardon Radiance 2400. I have yet to find a case where the sound quality could not be predicted based on the spinorama measurements unless it had sufficiently audible distortion.
What do you think about preference score with perfect subwoofer and preference score with perfect subwoofer + EQ?
Since we now have access to spinoramas and can buy subwoofers and integrate them.
 

Sean Olive

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I apologize for communicating poorly. My objections about absorptive material behind the speakers, and about (apparently) insufficient distance to the wall, were in regards to the mono/stereo test which included the Quads, as depicted on page 175 of the third edition of Floyd Toole's book. My understanding is that that test was not conducted in the shuffler room.
OK, my misunderstanding as you were referring to Martin Logans which were never tested at the NRC. The Quad tests were done at NRC before I arrived there in 1985. You should talk to Floyd about those tests.
 

Sean Olive

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Good to know.
Does Harman leave the absorbents on the rear wall in the picture in their reasearchers? They look to be 2" thick? And the half circular ones are perhaps BAD Arcs?

View attachment 192060


View attachment 192061
The absorption panels are close to 4 inches thick. Generally they are left on the back wall unless we are doing a test where we want a more live room.

The other panels you refer to are hemispherical diffusors.
 

ROOSKIE

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I have several loudspeakers here in several price points.
Looking only at the calculated Harman score as data.
Focusing on just one pair in particular as it was one that scored quite low on the predicted Harman score @3.6/3.7.
These are may favorite speakers here under $2500 and are the lowest scoring pair here at my place that have a published score.
I love how these sound preferring them in my slighted testing over much higher scoring speakers.
The pair is the JBL 4309.

I also have the Polk T50 which scored evenly with the JBL, yet I would be stone cold shocked if even 1 person rated them equally. The T50 is okay but really not even close IMHO.

There are other similar situations but this is the biggest deviation I have encountered based on my listening. Usually I find the score reasonably in alignment with my sighted preferences.

I am just curious if the Harman tests of 4309 yielded a very different preference level than the prediction predicted?

I really like them and they are my GF's favorite speakers along with her love for the M16 Revel.
 

Sean Olive

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What do you think about preference score with perfect subwoofer and preference score with perfect subwoofer + EQ?
Since we now have access to spinoramas and can buy subwoofers and integrate them.
Since the preference score is completely based on frequency response, adding subwoofers and EQ to improve it should improve the score and sound quality.

Of course, you cannot fix a speaker with poor directivity (not constant or smooth) using EQ because improving the direct sound comes at the expense of making the off-axis sound worse (and vice versa). We've done experiments to illustrate this.
 

BoredErica

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Since the preference score is completely based on frequency response, adding subwoofers and EQ to improve it should improve the score and sound quality.

Of course, you cannot fix a speaker with poor directivity (not constant or smooth) using EQ because improving the direct sound comes at the expense of making the off-axis sound worse (and vice versa). We've done experiments to illustrate this.
Hi,
I'm aware of those things. It just seems to me that with the tools we have today, a consumer who really cares about sound quality would probably get a subwoofer and be willing to EQ so part of me wonders why I should focus on regular preference score. For score with EQ, I dunno how exactly they figure out how well the FR can be EQed given the spinorama measurements and was wondering if you are familiar with/have any opinions on those scores.
1647196702778.png

Thanks
 

Duke

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We have tested speakers over the years that include dipoles (ML, Quad,) bipoles (e.g. Mirage), the AR Magic speaker where you could adjust the direct/reflected levels, Omni-directionals, and speakers with wide dispersion in the front hemisphere (BeoLabs with the acoustic lens). We have also tested some line arrays like the CBT Harman Kardon Radiance 2400. I have yet to find a case where the sound quality could not be predicted based on the spinorama measurements unless it had sufficiently audible distortion.

Those are some interesting speakers - very cool! I would definitely expect an educated look at the spinorama to correspond with listening test results.

Did listening tests indicate any apparent advantage or disadvantage to any of these multidirectional speakers relative to a conventional direct-radiator monopole with a comparable spinorama? In other words, did going multidirectional (or ultrawide directional) ever seem to be worth the added trouble and expense?

I realize that question may not have a clear-cut answer, but I would be more than happy with a fuzzy one.

Also, I would expect the algorithm which calculates a predictive score to be less well suited for multidirectional speakers, but that's just a guess.
 
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Sean Olive

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I have several loudspeakers here in several price points.
Looking only at the calculated Harman score as data.
Focusing on just one pair in particular as it was one that scored quite low on the predicted Harman score @3.6/3.7.
These are may favorite speakers here under $2500 and are the lowest scoring pair here at my place that have a published score.
I love how these sound preferring them in my slighted testing over much higher scoring speakers.
The pair is the JBL 4309.

I also have the Polk T50 which scored evenly with the JBL, yet I would be stone cold shocked if even 1 person rated them equally. The T50 is okay but really not even close IMHO.

There are other similar situations but this is the biggest deviation I have encountered based on my listening. Usually I find the score reasonably in alignment with my sighted preferences.

I am just curious if the Harman tests of 4309 yielded a very different preference level than the prediction predicted?

I really like them and they are my GF's favorite speakers along with her love for the M16 Revel.
I would have to compare the spins of both speakers and see the distortion measurements before I could comment. However, the 4309 seems to be a speaker that has some issues ( ie 1 kHz bump with some uneven response around it) which would produce lower predicted scores, yet Amir didn't seem to mind the resonance.

I own a pair of the M16s, and am also quite happy with them. They do have an extra bump in the upper bass which is a forgivable sin.

index.php
 

Sean Olive

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Hi,
I'm aware of those things. It just seems to me that with the tools we have today, a consumer who really cares about sound quality would probably get a subwoofer and be willing to EQ so part of me wonders why I should focus on regular preference score. For score with EQ, I dunno how exactly they figure out how well the FR can be EQed given the spinorama measurements and was wondering if you are familiar with/have any opinions on those scores.
View attachment 192194
Thanks
You shouldn't focus on preference scores. It was only intended to help naive people interpret spinorama measurements and reduce it to a single number.

Buy a loudspeaker based on its spinoroma measurements and how loud it can play without distortion for your application. Look for flat, smooth on-axis well maintained off-axis and smooth directivity. If it has smooth directivity then you can equalize it to improve the on-axis and off-axis response.

Add a subwoofer to extend the bass response, and allow it to play louder. A subwoofer also allows you placement flexibility: place it in a position to produce the most optimal bass response.. Add several subwoofers to reduce the seat-to-seat variance in the response.
All of these things I suggest will improve the predicted score, BTW.

However, none of these things can be done without first having good measurements starting with a spin. Few manufacturers provide these but you can find them here. Otherwise, you are equalizing a speaker blindly in a room, and the chances of getting good results are greatly diminished.
 
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thewas

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You shouldn't focus on preference scores. It was only intended to help naive people interpret spinorama measurement and reduce it to a single number.

Buy a loudspeaker based on its spinoroma measurements. Look for flat, smooth on-axis well maintained off-axis and smooth directivity. If it has smooth directivity then you can equalize it to improve the on-axis and off-axis response. Add a subwoofer to extend the bass response, allow it to play louder and place it in a position to produce the most optimal bass response.. Add several subwoofers to improve the seat-to-seat variance in the response.
All of these things I suggest will improve the predicted score, BTW. However, none of these things can be done without first having good measurements starting with a spin. Otherwise, you are equalizing a speaker blindly and the chances of getting good results are diminished.
With this excellent post from the creator himself (I put the first sentence in bold although the rest is also so rich in important information and compressed to the maximum but still so easy to understand also for hobby beginners), this and several similar discussions could be closed.
 

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75.8% of the (naïve) voters say that they value the score. I'll remember that next time someone calls subjectivists gullible or biased...
 

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With this excellent post from the creator himself (I put the first sentence in bold although the rest is also so rich in important information and compressed to the maximum but still so easy to understand also for hobby beginners), this and several similar discussions could be closed.
Doubtful. Some folks will interpret that sentence to mean the score is useless and should be ignored, because that is what they want to believe, and others will interpret it to mean the score has some use but should not be used as the final arbiter of speaker performance.

The latter interpretation was already the one held by most people anyways.
 
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