JBL 4312M II 3-way Studio Monitor Review

[Holy Spirit]

"...The 4312MII is a 5.25-inch, 3-way high-performance Studio Monitor that truly embodies JBL’s 70-year legacy of
world-class audio..." Bill Hicks was right about people in marketing. This $1000 thing is ugly and broken. Very headless.

 

[GXAlan]

To be clear, this is a 2008 generation product, similar to the JBL 4319 era. Calling it a 4312 is like BMW calling a car a 3 series when a 2008 3 series has little to do with the first 3 series.

JBL 4312 MII Specifications

Pretty horrendous measurements even though it is the same “generation” as the 4319

JBL 4319 Studio Monitor Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the JBL 4319 Studio Monitor, 3-way speaker review. It is kindly loaned to me by a member who bought it from Japan and had it sent to me. Apparently that is the last of the production before they switched to building them Malaysia. The 4319 is...

audiosciencereview.com

I see the 4312mII as the equivalent of something like this:

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Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for ‎ARCHI MODEL MOPARAGON 1/5 Ⅲ.4PR (3 way + passive) Paragon reproduced Brand New at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Lol, now we all know why after all LS3/5a and other BBC clones were not such a bad choice these days...

Back in the late '70's-early '80's when I was listening to everything. I probably heard these or some similar JBL model. That's why for decades, I wouldn't so much as hit a dog in the arse with JBLs.

 

[dbaudio]

Oh, the humanity...or perhaps, the Harmanity...sigh. OK, no more human jibes

 

[Deleted member 48437]

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of JBL 4312M II 3-way compact studio monitor (passive speaker). It is on kind loan from a member and I think costs US $1,000.
View attachment 340889
Without its ordinary looking grill, the 4312M II definitely has that vintage vibe but with added "beauty" of that white woofer. Those were the days where drivers were positioned to look good. Speaker is a bit heavy for its compact size, which imparts a feeling of quality which its standard box does not impart. Here is the back side:

View attachment 340890
What did the originals have? Screw terminals?

Let's measure it to see if these old ideas of speaker design were any good and whether if any faults have been remedied.

Note: I am the founder of Madrona Digital, a company that specializes in custom installs of electronics in homes and business. We are a dealer for Harman and hence JBL line although I am pretty sure we have never sourced any of these speakers. Objective measurements are as they are but feel free to read bias into my subjective remarks.

JBL 4312 MII Speaker Measurements
Let's start with the frequency response measurements of the 4312M II:
View attachment 340891
Story starts pretty good with that smooth response up to 1 kHz and then it looks like a high-school kid with no speaker design experience was told to slap a tweeter and midrange drivers together! What on earth is going on? A clue may be the super messy driver responses:
View attachment 340892
We have so many resonances that I lost count. I don't even know what the midrange is doing (some of it could be bleeding from adjacent driver). Predictably, things don't get better off-axis:


View attachment 340893

Resulting in very odd predicted in-room response:
View attachment 340894

Horizontally placed midrange and tweeter create interference pattern between them as you go off axis in either direction:
View attachment 340895

View attachment 340896

It looks better vertically so perhaps that is the way you want to use them:
View attachment 340897

With uneven frequency response, setting a level for distortion tests was non-trivial. I tried but I think I played them a bit louder than 86 dBSPL:
View attachment 340898
View attachment 340899

At that 86 dBSPL, I could hear the speaker squealing indicating distortion products that we can clearly see, especially those resonances.

Resonances naturally show up in waterfall plot:

View attachment 340900

Impedance shows the same:
View attachment 340901

Even the usually information-free step response shows anomalies:
View attachment 340902

JBL 4312M II Listening Tests and Equalization
I didn't want to listen to the speaker given the seriously poor measurements but decided to do anyway. You would think that the response would make your phone speaker proud but it is not so. It doesn't sound nearly as broken as you would imagine. Why? Because the response is actually pretty good up to 1 kHz. A lot of music spectrum that is important is carried in that region. Alas, those resonances can make the speaker sound bright even though overall treble response is shelved down.

You have to be a masochist to attempt to create an EQ by eye here but I tried anyway :
View attachment 340903

Without the EQ, the sound would quickly become tubby and lacking air (depending on content). And again, bright at times. With EQ, the ambiance around female vocals came back and some of the brightness taken care of with those two notch filters.

Alas, with or without EQ, more than half of my reference tracks were either not pleasurable or sounded annoying. This is just not my idea of a high fidelity speaker. I mean these are extremely well recorded tracks that are used to showcase systems and here, they just don't sound right/good.

Note that due to high sensitivity, I could not get the woofer to distort so playback dynamics was actually quite good for such a small speaker.

Conclusions
My impression of these JBL speakers was that they borrowed the look of the classic speakers but updated the parts/design to make them sound good. Clearly I was mistaken. By any standard, the 4312 M II is broken. I don't know how the marketing person with a straight face chose to call them "studio monitors." Heaven forbid anyone using them to create content!

I can't recommend the JBL 4312M II unless you want to put it on the shelf to just look at to bring back old memories....

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

This is how a great study should look like, not a sine wave on an oscilloscope. Kuddos to you for showing this speaker-in -sheep's clothing. I would like to see my B&W 802’s. Wait, on second thought no. This testing is so darn good that I might see something I don’t like, have to sell them and have to spend a bunch more stereo money! Lol. Great review, once again. Thank you

 

[Deleted member 48437]

Where on earth are they sourcing the tweeter and mid-range, a landfill? You can get better results from $5 drivers even if you design the crossover while blindfolded.

Does this measure one speaker? Crossover of just one?

 

[Jim - where is The Abyss]

This is actually funny. Thanks for a good laugh!

 

[JDS]

This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of JBL 4312M II 3-way compact studio monitor (passive speaker). It is on kind loan from a member and I think costs US $1,000.
View attachment 340889
Without its ordinary looking grill, the 4312M II definitely has that vintage vibe but with added "beauty" of that white woofer. Those were the days where drivers were positioned to look good. Speaker is a bit heavy for its compact size, which imparts a feeling of quality which its standard box does not impart. Here is the back side:

View attachment 340890
What did the originals have? Screw terminals?

Let's measure it to see if these old ideas of speaker design were any good and whether if any faults have been remedied.

Note: I am the founder of Madrona Digital, a company that specializes in custom installs of electronics in homes and business. We are a dealer for Harman and hence JBL line although I am pretty sure we have never sourced any of these speakers. Objective measurements are as they are but feel free to read bias into my subjective remarks.

JBL 4312 MII Speaker Measurements
Let's start with the frequency response measurements of the 4312M II:
View attachment 340891
Story starts pretty good with that smooth response up to 1 kHz and then it looks like a high-school kid with no speaker design experience was told to slap a tweeter and midrange drivers together! What on earth is going on? A clue may be the super messy driver responses:
View attachment 340892
We have so many resonances that I lost count. I don't even know what the midrange is doing (some of it could be bleeding from adjacent driver). Predictably, things don't get better off-axis:


View attachment 340893

Resulting in very odd predicted in-room response:
View attachment 340894

Horizontally placed midrange and tweeter create interference pattern between them as you go off axis in either direction:
View attachment 340895

View attachment 340896

It looks better vertically so perhaps that is the way you want to use them:
View attachment 340897

With uneven frequency response, setting a level for distortion tests was non-trivial. I tried but I think I played them a bit louder than 86 dBSPL:
View attachment 340898
View attachment 340899

At that 86 dBSPL, I could hear the speaker squealing indicating distortion products that we can clearly see, especially those resonances.

Resonances naturally show up in waterfall plot:

View attachment 340900

Impedance shows the same:
View attachment 340901

Even the usually information-free step response shows anomalies:
View attachment 340902

JBL 4312M II Listening Tests and Equalization
I didn't want to listen to the speaker given the seriously poor measurements but decided to do anyway. You would think that the response would make your phone speaker proud but it is not so. It doesn't sound nearly as broken as you would imagine. Why? Because the response is actually pretty good up to 1 kHz. A lot of music spectrum that is important is carried in that region. Alas, those resonances can make the speaker sound bright even though overall treble response is shelved down.

You have to be a masochist to attempt to create an EQ by eye here but I tried anyway :
View attachment 340903

Without the EQ, the sound would quickly become tubby and lacking air (depending on content). And again, bright at times. With EQ, the ambiance around female vocals came back and some of the brightness taken care of with those two notch filters.

Alas, with or without EQ, more than half of my reference tracks were either not pleasurable or sounded annoying. This is just not my idea of a high fidelity speaker. I mean these are extremely well recorded tracks that are used to showcase systems and here, they just don't sound right/good.

Note that due to high sensitivity, I could not get the woofer to distort so playback dynamics was actually quite good for such a small speaker.

Conclusions
My impression of these JBL speakers was that they borrowed the look of the classic speakers but updated the parts/design to make them sound good. Clearly I was mistaken. By any standard, the 4312 M II is broken. I don't know how the marketing person with a straight face chose to call them "studio monitors." Heaven forbid anyone using them to create content!

I can't recommend the JBL 4312M II unless you want to put it on the shelf to just look at to bring back old memories....

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I know this is a small speaker, but it looks like the bass response is already 3dB down above 100Hz, and 15dB down by 50Hz. So it isn't just the top end that is seriously flawed.

Whether it is $1000 per speaker or $1000 per pair (your text didn't specify), this is a ridiculous product.

 

[AudioSceptic]

As has been commented previously, this is designed to be a “look alike miniature” of the JBL 4312. The 4312 has a 12” woofer and 5” mid, which makes a lot more sense.

Yes, that might work, until you see it in the flesh, and then you would just laugh, no?

 

[Bleib]

What a wonderful disaster

 

[AudioSceptic]

The Century L100 was a horror show. I had two pairs over the years.

I tried to like them, I really did. But alongside actual quality loudspeakers, they were raucous, nasty ear bleeding and brutal.

Sure, play some Fleetwood Mac or The Eagles, with a gutful of alcohol and they were fuggin' awesome! But in the sober world, nah.

No, you needed something more metallic and distorted to start with, not soft rock (unless you mean the original blues-rock Mac, of course).

 

[Robbo99999]

Hell, I thought these speakers were from the early 80's or something, so they're actually not, you can still buy them?? Truly horrible measurements, I can't believe they're still being sold today, are they being sold today still??!!

 

[DSJR]

You are going a bit quickly: you forget in particular Elipson and Cabasse in France who manufactured high fidelity speakers and studio monitors of remarkable quality and for the Elipson an aesthetic which marked its time by using cones in paper and also, at Cabasse, membranes with a honeycomb structure whose weight/rigidity ratio was remarkable in every way compared to bextrene whose only advantage was a very low cost price and regularity of performance... l'ORTF and after Radio France were equipped with these speakers developed with the manufacturers - as the BBC did in Great Britain...

We never had these in the UK until possibly the 90's... I'm going back to the 1970's L100/4311 and IMF/Spendor era of UK 'high end' speakers...

 

[Anthony101]

I understand how disappointing it can be to spend €1000 on a pair of speakers and later realize they are not worth it. Recently, I had a negative experience with my Denon amp and the Klipsch 600m speakers, which were recommended by a popular audiophile YouTuber. The reviews show that the Klipsch have a hole in the frequency response, and the amp is not good.

I now rely on the Topping DAC headphone amp and the Crinicle Zero 2 to enjoy high-quality audio.

 

[dtaylo1066]

Alanis Morissette has an album named after this JBL's frequency response: "Jagged Little Pill." I have seen less jagged edges on the teeth of a bow saw. Yeeesh.

Certainty not worth playing Sade's "Smooth Operator" on these monitors.

There are plenty of inexpensive, quality drivers out there that could be dropped into this price range speaker that would preform much better given a half-way decent crossover. And, in general, a three way is a waste of time, money and complexity when using a 5 1/2 woofer. Call up WMX and haul 'em a way. Garbage.

 

[amirm]

Pricing is for a pair.

 

[GXAlan]

Hell, I thought these speakers were from the early 80's or something, so they're actually not, you can still buy them?? Truly horrible measurements, I can't believe they're still being sold today, are they being sold today still??!!

2008 launch.

Doesn’t seem to be available anymore but can readily find new in box JBL 4312MII so the availability must have been up until the last few years.

https://www.jbl.com/4312MII-.html

Oh, those screw threads are for mounting not for electrical connections as far as I know.

 

[GXAlan]

@amirm, out of curiosity, what happens if you turn the L-pads all the way to maximum?

 

[ReDFoX]

I believe the 4311 and L100 ran the woofer full range.

4312 too
It is truly awful.
Below is a nearfield measurement of 4312mkii woofer. I guess, JBL did nothing to try to smooth that breakup

 

[617]

I believe the 4311 and L100 ran the woofer full range.

Not only is the L100 woofer full range, the mid and high networks consist of a cap and an L-pad each! Amazing.

The idea of using a woofer without a low pass is not without precedent, and it is elegant in a certain sense. If the woofer is naturally well damped, you can get a first order slope without much breakup, and you have the added advantage that the DI is smooth all the way up through the treble owing to the fact that the only thing changing directivity is the beaming of the woofer, which in an ideal scenario is smooth and predictable. The mid is more of a 'coupling' driver, a low tweeter, essentially, and the tweeter can be built to only deal with the tippy top octave.

The spendor BC1 works that way:

Troels Gravesen has a great discussion on this speaker and the L100.

You can learn a lot from old speakers. ASR is too harsh on the designers of these systems.

Of course if you want a high efficiency paper woofer with super extended HF, breakup is inevitable, which is how you get the JBL situation.