So this is weird. I picked up a set of 4312As a few years back. But they have just never sounded right to me. I poked around a little when I first got them, but everything looked OK. I didn't like them as much as my Centurys, so they went in my office. Where they still didn't sound right.
We moved and they got put in use for the media room. I was watching an episode of Monk and everything sounded wrong. His voice sound liked there was nothing but upper mid. And the imaging had always been super unstable.
So I looked at them again, but this time with a ton of knowledge from this site and Audio Karma. It turns out the tabs of the mid... 104H-3s... were wrong. It has the "genders" of the tabs reversed. Plus was on the left side of the speaker as the wiring diagram shows. But it's tab accepted only the negative wire. I tested the speaker; + moves the cone forward as stated in the tech sheets for the 104H-3. Has anyone else encountered this?
So anyway I got in there are put another set of connectors in the wires so I can easily change the polarity/phase.
They sound SO MUCH BETTER now. I could go on and on about the difference between my early 70s Centurys and my mid-80s 4312As... now that the midrange speaker is in phase. Much flatter than the Centurys. Piano and voices in particular benefit from the improved mid-range. Loads of bass, but not so peaky at 70Hz. They're mirror imaged... and as a result the imaging is spectacular.
This is my first post. I'll post some pics If I can figure out how to do that...
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