# 8" or 5,6,7" Studio Monitors?



## JoshuaVonFlash (Jan 9, 2014)

I having trouble deciding which size monitors to get, my room is about 7 ft. high and 11 feet wide. Which size would be best for my room?


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## darkinners (Jan 9, 2014)

7' high it's a pretty low ceiling .

8" can do, if your room is treated. 

if it itsn't. 6"5 would be enough.


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## newamerikangospel (Jan 9, 2014)

What is your other room demension? Unless it's like 25' long, you are going to have a bunch of room modes grouping around 200-400hz. Unless you have bass/low-mid trapping, you will want a smaller speaker. It's less about the monitor and more about how your room will allow you to perceive it.


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## Given To Fly (Jan 9, 2014)

I think 5" monitors would be the most appropriate followed by the 6.5"s and lastly the 8"s. I have a room slightly bigger than yours and I downsized from 6.5"s to 5" monitors. Its hard to say whether I needed to downsize because both pairs of monitors are very different, but I'm confident 8" monitors were not the way to go.


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## morethan6 (Jan 9, 2014)

newamerikangospel said:


> What is your other room demension? Unless it's like 25' long, you are going to have a bunch of room modes grouping around 200-400hz. Unless you have bass/low-mid trapping, you will want a smaller speaker. It's less about the monitor and more about how your room will allow you to perceive it.



This person is very sensible and speaking the truth. What they said.


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## JoshuaVonFlash (Jan 9, 2014)

I have the opportunity to buy two pairs of monitors. One is a pair of Yamaha HS7 for $410 (they're really 6.5") Or a pair of Prosonus Eris e8's for $350, which ones do you guys think I should get? My room is 7 feet tall and 11 feet wide, if that helps.


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## Katash (Jan 10, 2014)

7" max, especially if the room is untreated.
8" only if you have proper acoustical treatment.
5" can work just fine.

Have listen before you buy!


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## Drew (Jan 10, 2014)

Could someone walk me through the argument that in a given room size, you shouldn't have a monitor larger than X"? I mean, maybe by assuming decent acoustic treatment I'm making a mistake here, but I'd think by dealing with a smaller room by using a smaller driver, you're just introducing a whole range of other problems (i.e - now you don't have phase cancellation in the low end; but you likely have phase cancellation higher up and you only avoid low end phase cancellelation because your low end isn't being fully reproduced to begin with). 

I see this argument a lot, but it's usually just being passed along with no more than a cursory explanation, and I've never seen someone actually walk through the physics. I'd be very curious to hear that argument, because to me, if you're going to a smaller driver the biggest difference you're going to see is you're raising the excursion point, producing less low end, and substituting phase cancellation at the bottom of the bass register for a simple lack of content in the bottom of the bass register. To me, the net result is the same - you can't trust the low end reproduction of your monitor system.

I don't see this argument nearly as much on the recording-focused boards I read, so I'm wondering how/why this has become such common wisdom here.


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## tedtan (Jan 10, 2014)

Drew said:


> Could someone walk me through the argument that in a given room size, you shouldn't have a monitor larger than X"?



The basic theory is that most larger monitors are designed to produce lower frequencies (deeper extension), so by going with a larger monitor, you will either 1) excite more (lower) room nodes (and their harmonics) due to the increased low frequency extension, or 2) excite the room nodes more strenuously due to the increased amount of low end. Because these nodes can have swings of well over 30dB difference between the peaks and troughs, it creates a nightmare in which to try to mix low end, more so than a bit of phase cancellation would introduce.

I don't know if this holds up in reality, but it seems to hold up under cursory scrutiny.

Of course, the only ways to determine what will work best are to either run the math on a given room and monitor to determine the optimal acoustic treatment or to actually buy the monitors, try them out and measure your real world results.


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## Drew (Jan 10, 2014)

Aye, but how does not producing those frequencies at all improve things? Looking at their spec sheet, Yamaha (for example) claims the H5s are flat within -10db (which imo is pretty generous) down to 55hz, and eyeballing it it's probably about 65db where you're truly flat. The 40-65 range is squarely where your kick drum fundamental falls, often times. Meanwhile, the 8s are flat within 10db down to 42, according to their spec sheet. Again, pretty generous definition of "flat," but you'll have that. Digging around, I found this handy comparison chart of the 5s, the 8s, and the old NS10s:







So, the 5s cut off earlier, and appear to be weaker than the 8s all the way through the lower midrange. Not hugely, but eyeballing that I'd say an average of maybe 3-4db. 

So, how exactly does that _help_ you? For the frequencies past where the 5s drop off, if they're not being produced, then you can't hear them. In an untreated room they'll probably be messy, but at least they're going to be there, right? And for the point where they're diminished somewhat - again, how does that actually help things? You're dealing with comb filtering, which is highly unpredictable; in some frequencies/areas of the room the reflections will combine to reinforce each others, but in others they'll cancel themselves out. They're still an undefined, inaccurate mess, but they're now one that's harder to hear in the room, and I don't see how that makes it any easier to fix...? 

That's the basic "high level" argument I've heard around here a lot, I just don't see how it holds any water.


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## Alphanumeric (Jan 10, 2014)

7 or 8. With 5 if you want to accurately mix a kick drum or the low end of the bass you would maybe have to on high end headphones or with a sub. Yes room nodes and bass building is an issue, get bass traps. Its more important that you can hear these frequencies rather than compromise with a smaller speaker where you will end up boosting too much low end.


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## 7stg (Jan 11, 2014)

For general use I always recommend a 7 inch minimum with the option of adding a sub later, as they will give the ability to better hear what is going on in the low end, they will still work well in a small room, and will work well at low levels but have more headroom when wanted. I have a pair of Adam a7x and they will work in any location with standard proper placement.

Getting 5 inch studio monitors to compensate for an untreated room really does not fix the problem. It's better to buy a bit larger monitors then build some DIY bass traps with Owens Corning 703 4 inch panels which is the same material as the high dollar pro model bass traps. 

It's the pay more or pay twice philosophy.


I like the Yamaha HS7 or HS8.


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## Drew (Jan 11, 2014)

Yeah, I posed this same question at a recording-dedicated forum I read, which is frequented by a number of professional studio design and acoustic engineer types. The consensus is coming back that you ARE just trading one problem for another when you go to a smaller speaker in a smaller room, and that furthermore most of the damage you're running into is really in the 80-300hz range in a small untreated room, at which point a smaller monitor's higher bass cutoff won't help you at all - acoustic treatment will.

So, can we all just agree to stop saying, "in a small room, you shouldn't use anything larger than X inches?"


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## JoshuaVonFlash (Jan 11, 2014)

Drew said:


> Yeah, I posed this same question at a recording-dedicated forum I read, which is frequented by a number of professional studio design and acoustic engineer types. The consensus is coming back that you ARE just trading one problem for another when you go to a smaller speaker in a smaller room, and that furthermore most of the damage you're running into is really in the 80-300hz range in a small untreated room, at which point a smaller monitor won't help you at all - acoustic treatment will.
> 
> So, can we all just agree to stop saying, "in a small room, you shouldn't use anything larger than X inches?"


Well that settles that.


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## Drew (Jan 11, 2014)

Edited for clarity, but yeah.  I never understood that argument, and it was reassuring to hear a few of the pros agreeing with me.


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## 7stg (Jan 11, 2014)

Another angle for getting the larger woofer. If you go larger and wish for more subdued bass response, there is a nob on the back that can reduce the low end. Typically this is adjusted along with a test mic to provide a flat response in the room. With the smaller speakers, no amount of eq'ing is going to bring back frequencies they are not physically able to produce.


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## vansinn (Jan 11, 2014)

I wholehartedly agree with comments about room treatment, actually to the point that without at least basic treatment, it's a bit umsonst discussing which speakers are best suited for this or that room.

WRT room treatment, starting with absorption behind speakers and monitor, and mixed absorption/dispersion at the primary reflexion points to the sides, plus overhead absorption against top-down reflexions, will greatly improve any room.
While this won't directly do enough in the predominant 70-80 through 200-400 Hz room modes, but as sound waves are now bouncing less than without any treatment, the lower end will be less problematic.

Free software for analyzing rooms, based purely on math, can be downloaded. Search out for things like 'room analyzer software'.
It'll show you where to expect room modes and of which magnitude.
While it won't be 100 % accurate, it'll tell a surprisingly accurate story, and further allow placing your speakers off the most predominant room modes.

And for the love of good sound, keep the subs at some distance to floor/wall, and especially corners, or you'll have uncontrolled couplings.
Yes, I know many subs are build to radiate downwards in order to directly use the floor as part of it's design. I really don't like those constructions, as it too easily results in uncontrollable couplings.


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## Sam MJ (Jan 11, 2014)

I'm kind of torn on the small speaker/big speaker argument. While I'm sure it's ideal to have big speakers and a ton of treatment there are some advantages to using smaller speakers. For example, in a small untreated room you might be better off spending the extra money, that you would have spent on bigger speakers, on a decent set of headphones to check the low end. 


There's also room gain. When a room is too small for a wave to develop fully they gain energy at that frequency and all those below. 
I can't remember the exact number by which it increases (probably between 6/12db per octave) but essentially because in a small room your last mode is higher and so everything under that starts to raise. Theoretically if you're clever about it you should be able to use that to compensate for the low frequency roll off of a smaller speaker! 

(atleast I think that's right, if it isn't please feel free to correct me )


I suppose also with smaller speakers you have a shorter recommended listening distance and with less low frequencies being produced you're less likely to annoy neighbours.






7stg said:


> Another angle for getting the larger woofer. If you go larger and wish for more subdued bass response, there is a nob on the back that can reduce the low end. Typically this is adjusted along with a test mic to provide a flat response in the room. With the smaller speakers, no amount of eq'ing is going to bring back frequencies they are not physically able to produce.


You can't correct for room modes with eq because they are in the time domain, not just frequency. 


The switches on the back of speakers are for compensating for proximity to walls. As you move a speaker towards a wall you get more bass because the low frequencies are no longer radiating omnidirectionally but closer to hemispherically instead (or actually hemispherically in the case of softmount speakers which use something like a -6db low shelf to compensate)


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## vansinn (Jan 12, 2014)

Sam MJ said:


> ...in a small untreated room you might be better off spending the extra money, that you would have spent on bigger speakers, on a decent set of headphones to check the low end.



Absolutely agree. 



> There's also room gain. When a room is too small for a wave to develop fully they gain energy at that frequency and all those below.
> I can't remember the exact number by which it increases (probably between 6/12db per octave) but essentially because in a small room your last mode is higher and so everything under that starts to raise. Theoretically if you're clever about it you should be able to use that to compensate for the low frequency roll off of a smaller speaker!


 
This doesn't sound like science to me. Do you have pointers/URL to this?



> I suppose also with smaller speakers you have a shorter recommended listening distance and with less low frequencies being produced you're less likely to annoy neighbours.



What annoys neighbours the most are the bumping upper-range bass, resulting from exactly the room modes several posts have referred.
With decent room treatment, the frequency response will be flat enough and have a short enough decaytime to not produce - at least to a fair degree - the dreaded thumping effect that otherwise makes itself so annoyingly felt at distance.



7stg said:


> Another angle for getting the larger woofer. If you go larger and wish for more subdued bass response, there is a nob on the back that can reduce the low end. Typically this is adjusted along with a test mic to provide a flat response in the room. With the smaller speakers, no amount of eq'ing is going to bring back frequencies they are not physically able to produce.





> You can't correct for room modes with eq because they are in the time domain, not just frequency.
> 
> The switches on the back of speakers are for compensating for proximity to walls. As you move a speaker towards a wall you get more bass because the low frequencies are no longer radiating omnidirectionally but closer to hemispherically instead (or actually hemispherically in the case of softmount speakers which use something like a -6db low shelf to compensate)



Agree. if the room has a dominant mode at, say, 80 Hz, taking the speakers response down by 2 dB starting from around 80-100 Hz will of course have the effect of stimulating this room mode be a lesser degree, but it'll also attenuate the frequency range below where the problem is.
What's needed - if proper room treatment is deemed too difficult, is a sort of notch filter acting against just the narrow range having the problem.


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## Sam MJ (Jan 12, 2014)

vansinn said:


> This doesn't sound like science to me. Do you have pointers/URL to this?


To be completely honest I'm not 100% sure about it and I was hesitant about posting it at all in the first place, hence the correct me if I'm wrong bit. It seems to be a bit tricky to find alot of exact information on the subject but here's some I've dug out of my favourites.

Pressed Lizard studios designed by the fantastic Bogic Petrovic of MyRoom acoustics. 
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.203105316452322.44808.108419192587602&type=3
Note that what look to be 8-10" speakers are going down to 4.5hz and in the sixth picture you can see he's marked the roll off of the speakers in free feild and mentioned room gain. (this is what first got me interested)

Room Acoustics - See C2

After posting those I thought I better do some more research and I found out It's also called cabin gain by the car audio community. Well that explains why it was tricky to find out. 

Room gain - Page 4 - diyAudio

http://www.nousaine.com/pdfs/Cabin Gain.pdf





vansinn said:


> What annoys neighbours the most are the bumping upper-range bass, resulting from exactly the room modes several posts have referred.


I was talking more about the fact that low frequencies are harder to isolate and go through walls much easier.


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## Drew (Jan 12, 2014)

Sam MJ said:


> There's also room gain. When a room is too small for a wave to develop fully they gain energy at that frequency and all those below.
> I can't remember the exact number by which it increases (probably between 6/12db per octave) but essentially because in a small room your last mode is higher and so everything under that starts to raise. Theoretically if you're clever about it you should be able to use that to compensate for the low frequency roll off of a smaller speaker!
> 
> (atleast I think that's right, if it isn't please feel free to correct me )



No, that's not right. 

The problem you're referring to, at it's most simplest, is soundwaves bouncing off the walls in random phase alignment determined by the wavelength, distance from speaker to reflective surface, and distance from speaker and various reflective surfaces to the listener's ear. Phase alignment problems therefore become partially frequency dependent, in what's called "comb filtering" - some frequencies will happen to be perfectly in phase and they will become additive, resulting in standing waves where certain frequencies get boosted. Others will happen to be 180 degrees out of phase in certain positions, resulting in "holes" in the frequency range where they're not reproduced at all. Exactly how this plays out will depend on your room, where your speakers are, and where you are in relation to the speakers and the walls, but it's definitely not as simple as "a smaller room makes bass louder." Not even close. 

Now, using a speaker that physically can't produce as much low end (something with a smaller driver) will make comb filtering problems less audible, true... But they do so because the entire low end is less audible, so you still have just as many problems, it's just they're harder to hear because the entire low end is harder to hear. That's hardly an improvement. 

Whether or not a smaller driver in ANY room is right for you really depends on your circumstances - if you're a solo acoustic singer/songwriter who doesn't use bass or drums, then low end reproduction is going to be a lot less important to you than t would be if you're doing detuned metal. If you're budget's tight, then ANY monitor is better than none and if that means you need to buy something smaller, then so be it. And if mixing music is a hobby and you're not super concerned about making absolutely flawless mixes, or if your focus is more songwriting and recording is a means to that end, and for whatever reason it's just more convenient to have a smaller monitor set, then it absolutely might make sense to get something smaller (again, my first monitors were a 5.5" set of Behringer Truths, and I went with them instead of the 8" set because at that time I was on a really tight budget and I couldn't have fit the 8" set on the desk I was using - they were the "right" monitors for me for reasons that had nothing to do with room acoustics). But arguing that a smaller driver will magically fix low end problems in the space you're mixing in simply doesn't make sense - the science doesn't support it.


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## Sam MJ (Jan 12, 2014)

Drew said:


> No, that's not right.
> 
> The problem you're referring to, at it's most simplest, is soundwaves bouncing off the walls in random phase alignment determined by the wavelength, distance from speaker to reflective surface, and distance from speaker and various reflective surfaces to the listener's ear. Phase alignment problems therefore become partially frequency dependent, in what's called "comb filtering" - some frequencies will happen to be perfectly in phase and they will become additive, resulting in standing waves where certain frequencies get boosted. Others will happen to be 180 degrees out of phase in certain positions, resulting in "holes" in the frequency range where they're not reproduced at all. Exactly how this plays out will depend on your room, where your speakers are, and where you are in relation to the speakers and the walls, but it's definitely not as simple as "a smaller room makes bass louder." Not even close.
> 
> ...


I think there's been a misunderstanding. 


If you read what I posted in my second post you'll see I'm talking about something different, _not_ modes and SBIR. 

Rooms are traditionally split into 2 zones; above and below the Schroeder frequency. Above the Schroeder frequency sound travels like a ray but under that frequency the room starts acting like a resonator and you get room modes.

What I'm saying is that according to a bit of research there might be a third zone below the modal region that starts at (-*EDIT) HALF* your lowest room mode.

In large rooms it is pretty irrelevant scince most of the time the lowest mode will be low enough for it not to matter but in a *(-very)* small room you might be able to use it to your advantage. Infact it turns out it's used in car audio to boost the output of subs! 

I'm _not_ arguing that a smaller driver will fix low end problems, just that it _might_ be possible to get a decent amount of bass from a smaller driver because of support in that region from your room. 
The speaker construction would have to be right though as ported speakers drop off at 24db/octave so you wouldn't get much benefit. Sealed boxes and transmission lines on the other hand drop off at something like 6-12db/octave. If your speakers rolled off at the same point as your lowest mode your speakers might get enough support from the room to extend the frequency responce of the speaker a bit. (which I believe is what's happening at pressed lizard studios) 

I've no idea if any of this will actually work but it's quite interesting. 

Edit; I'm getting less and less confident in this theory by the second  (I'll have to do some more research) so please take it with a pinch of salt.

Edit 2; I found a much better source of info and apparently it happens at the 1/4 wavelength not the 1/2 wavelength (room modes are 1/2).
While it would work the room would have to be tiny for it to work with small speakers and the speakers have to be sealed.

Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://www.cartchunk.org/audiotopics/SmallEnclBass.pdf

Well anyway, that concludes my madman's rant, I hope it wasn't too OT


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## Drew (Jan 15, 2014)

Not at all.


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## mgh (Jan 16, 2014)

i'd go for the cheaper monitors and with the cash left over either get a decent pair of headphones or something like IK Arc 2 which will help you neutralise your room deficiencies, as well as making it easier to get close to reference tracks...


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## newamerikangospel (Jan 21, 2014)

I will say that in my experience, it seems like bigger speakers always have enclosures designed to "hype" the low end (maybe to make them sound "better" or "more exciting" to coax out the extra $400 out of the customer, while still having a model for people who wont spend $1000 on a pair of "big ones"). And of course, the speaker enclosures need to become bigger for a bigger speaker, so logically it may drop some of its peaks down lower as well. 

Testing a monitor in an anechoic environment only tells you what the speaker and enclosure does by itself, but for all intents and purposes, and for arguments sake, an improperly setup room with completely flat monitors may deceive your ears more than an inferior speaker set, setup correctly. Moving your monitors around and finding the most optimal place for them in the room determines how they will perform more than anechoic testing (and I will stand behind that as fact), which of course has its place as a metric, but doesn't mean how it will perform for you.

In my old mixing location, I had a wall with 24" studs without insulation on my right leading to an interior room (my live room), and a wall with tons of insulation and a brick facade on my left. Because of the undampened "chambers" that were formed between the two interior walls, I had a TON of low resonance around 50-80hz, and alot of high end kick back on my left, which made my left speaker sound a little quieter and not as full (at one point I thought something had failed in it). The monitors I spent $800 for were being effected by parameters outside of my control, as it was a rented location and tearing out a wall would've cost me several thousand by itself. 

The only thing I could do was "learn" my room. Every room, even professional treated as accurately and tuned with OCD levels of attention, will "lie" to you. Unless you somehow own an airplane hangar with tens of thousands of empty square footage, your room will amplify and null frequencies. The more time and effort you spend, the less drastic the change. However, knowing how my room was changing my mix and spending a few moments for basic sound treatments increased my work drastically. However, going back, and tying in both points, if your monitor overly excites frequencies that your room is going to amplify...

Thats just my two cents, and I could be completely wrong.


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## Drew (Jan 23, 2014)

newamerikangospel said:


> However, going back, and tying in both points, if your monitor overly excites frequencies that your room is going to amplify...



...but the problem is it's not as simple as a small room amplifying bass frequencies. It doesn't - small rooms create lots of fairly early reflections and result in a lot of sound waves bouncing around rapidly, which creates comb filtering. Some frequencies are amplified, some our cancelled, and it takes a tremendous amount of math to project which will be which so you can't rely on a simple rule of thumb. 

I actually had more problem with the later in my last room, that it was somewhat hard to gauge bass response because in normal mixing position (which because it was also my bedroom, there was only so much I could do) a lot of the low end seemed to be getting diminished. I had to learn how to deal with it and adjust accordingly just by checking mixes on a bunch of other systems, but going from a 5.5" driver to an 8" driver didn't make the problem worse - if anything, it actually helped a little simply because the low end was just being produced more truly in the first place.


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## newamerikangospel (Jan 23, 2014)

I agree. But if your monitor is exciting 250hz, and the room has a huge mode response on 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, it can make your mix sound thin if you try to work off your monitors alone instead of understanding your room will be low mid heavy. I think we are saying the same things, just in different ways. The room determines how a monitor will respond, you just have to watch out for "stacking" effects


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## Drew (Jan 25, 2014)

newamerikangospel said:


> I agree. But if your monitor is exciting 250hz, and the room has a huge mode response on 125hz, 250hz, 500hz, it can make your mix sound thin if you try to work off your monitors alone instead of understanding your room will be low mid heavy. I think we are saying the same things, just in different ways. The room determines how a monitor will respond, you just have to watch out for "stacking" effects



No, I definitely agree - but it's a LOT more complex than "small roomas have huge mode responses in X, X*2, X*4, etc" because comb filtering is dependent on SO many variables. Besides, very few monitors tend to strongly accent a particular frequency - the idea is to make them as flat as possible, right? So, the best thing you can do as a guy mixing in ANY size room is just buy a good set of monitors that are flat in as broad a frequency range as possible, and then deal with any acoustic issues in your room so the environment they're playing back in is as neutral as possible. 

...which is why saying "in a smaller room, you should use a smaller driver" doesn't make any sense.


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