Precise Acoustic Laboratories Speakers - Info & Pics

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PRECISE ( aka PRECISE Acoustic Laboratories) is one of many brands that has little to no web presence and is right up there in obscurity a couple of other brands I had been trying to hunt down more information on at one time or another. ( AudioAnalyst, Dunlap Clarke, Glenmonitor Audio all come to mind)

Oddly enough the most info available came directly from AK in the included link. (bottom of the post) -

Long story short ( as if that's actually possible for me). I came across a pair of PRECISE 300BL speakers but didn't have time to investigate much further than checking out the drivers ( in tact with some smooshed in dust caps on the woofers) and the overall condition and build quality of the cabinet. - Condition CHECK ( grills and all) Build Quality ( CHECK) seems like decent cabinets and a fairly solid looking pair of binding post.

Has anyone owned, used, demoed or come in contact with this particular brand and/or Model in their audio travels? Of course A sales spec sheet, catalog or ad scan or even a manual for this model or for any of their stuff would be nice to view as well.

Here's the link to a previous thread.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=72718
 
Have any pictures of the speakers?

Onkyo did make speakers under their own Onkyo name, I don't know if they would have branched out.
 
Unfortunately I have no photos, and oddly enough I couldn't even find one image of any of the models on the web, but clearly a few folks own them and even discussed them a bit right here on AK and on the Stereophile forums. ( same person initiated the thread).
 
I remember them, though I wouldn't be able to match model numbers to speakers.

The other thread was correct in that Onkyo employed Keith Johnson in the design process. I can't tell you anything about him other that IIRC, he was an engineer for one of the direct-to-disc record companies.

The idea was to make a line of speakers (from a Japanese company) that would have some USA pedigree, and would appeal to the American consumer.

The problem as I saw it was that they didn't know whether they were an east coast speaker or a west coast speaker. The construction quality fell somewhat short of the best examples of either. The frequency balance was east-coastish, but without the dynamics of, say, the better Bostons, Polks, Cizeks etc. The appearance was west-coastish, at first glance easily mistaken for the Infinitys with their imitation light oak veneer.
 
since there is disjointed information spread out in various locations:
Here are the AK links referencing PRECISE ACOUSTIC LABORATORIES Speakers


Got any more Photos, info, Brochures, Manuals, Articles? Post them up here. Part of the reason why there is such little info about the brand/models is that google will point to an AK url but won't keep you logged into to the site, so the photos are NOT viewable, logging in doesn't work in that case either. so here are the Correct "keep you logged into AK" URLs for references about PRECISE ACOUSTICS LABORATORIES speakers. I'm sure it would be a pain in the tookis for the Mods to merge them all into this one thread so I hope that this thread will serve as a comprehensive list of info for these speakers within AK. Hopefully more folks will chime in with more data, photos etc.

Discussion in Dollars and Sense:
"Precise Acoustic Laboratories - Keith Johnson & Onkyo Speakers"

Discussion in Speakers:
"What the hell are these???":

Precise Acoustic Laboratories, ANY INFO??

Precise Acoustic Labs Monitor 10's anyone?

there's one other hit, but it's a false lead on a "can you ID these speakers" thread.

Here's a repeat of some photos from the first link I posted:

Precise Acoustic Laboratories 400BL Speakers

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Screen%2520Shot%25202014-03-12%2520at%25208.15.37%2520PM.png


and some scans posted by AKer bichitus
in a thread in the dollars and sense area:

"Precise Acoustic Laboratories - Keith Johnson & Onkyo Speakers"


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Photos from the "What the hell are these???" Thread from SettingSun
Precise Acoustic Laboratories: 300 BL Speakers

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PRECISE ACOUSTIC LABORATORIES : Monitor 10
Important Images from the thread listed above - posted by AK Member Analog Addict

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So I can now say that I've played just about every genre of music that I care about through the 400BL, all of the mainstream stuff and then some off the beaten path stuff just to see if I could throw them a curve ball and have them fail to perform as well as they do on vocals, jazz and popular music.

Read the full commentary here
 
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I'm not sure, but I believe the Monitor 10 was reviewed by Stereophile magazine way back when. As far as Dunlap/Clarke is concerned, they made the Dreadnaught series of amplifiers maybe 35 years ago.
 
I'm not sure, but I believe the Monitor 10 was reviewed by Stereophile magazine way back when. As far as Dunlap/Clarke is concerned, they made the Dreadnaught series of amplifiers maybe 35 years ago.

I'll have to dig through the web and see if there's any reference to a stereophile review. If so , I probably have that issue here somewhere.
 
A pair of Monitor 3's showed up on CL so I thought I'd post the pics here for posterity. Sorry no interior shots.

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A pair of Monitor 3's showed up on CL so I thought I'd post the pics here for posterity. Sorry no interior shots.

Very cool,
I actually came face to face with a pair of Monitor 10's a couple of weeks ago. I know the person who has them, they need some TLC and I'm hoping that I talked him out of bastardizing them with off the shelf drivers and just taking the time to refoam the original drivers. There's also a set up on the auction site but the price is a fantasy unless that person finds a serious fanboy who doesn't care that there really is no following for the PRECISE brand outside of few folks, and even those people ( myself included) is only interested at realistic market prices of "damn near nothing" because that's what they are worth to the rest of the audio community, no matter who designed them , and the back story about how they came to be.

Sad but thats the case with a lot of decent speakers that never broke the market and don't have any street buzz with the audio addicts out here. I almost crapped my pants when I saw a set of Acoustic Research AR303's hit what I'd consider to be a crazy number this week on the bay. Crazy because they just don't have a following like that . Damn near every thing that has been written about them , I wrote hahah so maybe I'm driving up the market prices by adding commentary to the web? :) certainly seems to be happening with Audire amps , My commentary on AK is one of the first things that pops up in a search prior to that there was nothing really said about the brand, now there are feeding frenzies when one of the Big amps show up for auction.

In any case, cool to see another set of Precise speakers survive the land fill out there. Now if I can just get my hands on a pair of Glennmonitor Audio Block Heads. ( see what I did... now the price will quadruple if a pair shows up hahahah).

did you buy the 3's or did the listing expire with them UNSOLD!?
 
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Sounds like a marketing opportunity. Buy up hundreds of copies of some semi obscure bookshelf speaker or component, talk it up all over the web, and then start to sell. :D
 
Sounds like a marketing opportunity. Buy up hundreds of copies of some semi obscure bookshelf speaker or component, talk it up all over the web, and then start to sell. :D

crap.. you're on to my tactic! hahah It really Seems as though it would be as simple as that, although it's probably not. First thing we all do is google the item. If you've gone that far , you're just looking for a reason to buy whatever it is anyway :)
 
first of all, my apologies for reviving this relatively old thread.

i am faced with the opportunity of purchasing a pair of Monitor 5s. being new to this, i would just like to ask, how would these compare to newer "entry level" bookshelf speakers (from the likes of Paradigm, PSB, Polk, etc.)? if i do decide to get them, i would pair them with my one and only NAD 304. any input would be most appreciated.

as an aside, i live in the Philippines (which would make this a rare find considering it was meant for the U.S. market). 2nd hand items are priced relatively high and bargains are few and far between. for reference, the asking price is a little below retail price for a new set of either a Polk T15 or a JBL Loft 40.
 
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This thread is subject to be revived as other folks come across Precise speakers, or can share more info , Photos and positive experiences. So no worries on bringing it back to life. :) I've never heard any of the models in question and It's unlikely that many if any, here has either. Not impossible but just not likely given the limited market reach of Precise even when they were actively promoting and marketing the brand they didn't end up in many folks living rooms.

Your best bet it to try to get a listen to them and decide for yourself. while the Precise monitor 5 is "RARE", rarity is a double edged sword. if there is ample HYPE and Buzz about an item and it has become desirable by myth , of which many products do , and some undeservingly so (Rogers, Chartwell and Spendor LS3/5a speakers , for me, is a product that is legendary for being legendary, there are better performing speakers for less or equal money yet the market values are rising like crazy... it's a "ME TOO" , lemming society we live in :) .)

Where the precise models got little more than a brief mention at the time of their introduction. so it's a Rarity with NO hype to support it's desirability or market value. which is something you might want to consider. if the costs to you will be the same as a branded model and you're one to change things up after a while of experiencing gear. A well known brand might be much easier to resell than the Monitor 5, you won't have to tell the PRECISE story and history , their name alone will carry familiarity for many and the web can do the rest. Precise, Audire, Tangent Acoustics, Audio Analyst, RDL Acoustics, RA Labs... the list goes on and on. yeah, no one is checking for those brands, no matter how great they may perform and sound. The average person will overlook them as if they are "white van" speakers.

so in short. Listen if you can and decide that way. It's a tough call though, because in this hobby it seems no one wants what no one's yapping about. :)
 
Got any more Photos, info, Brochures, Manuals, Articles? Post them up here. Part of the reason why there is such little info about the brand/models is that google will point to an AK url but won't keep you logged into to the site, so the photos are NOT viewable, logging in doesn't work in that case either. so here are the Correct "keep you logged into AK" URLs for references about PRECISE ACOUSTICS LABORATORIES speakers. I'm sure it would be a pain in the tookis for the Mods to merge them all into this one thread so I hope that this thread will serve as a comprehensive list of info for these speakers within AK. Hopefully more folks will chime in with more data, photos etc.

Here's a work-around to this (maybe script?) problem.

Get your digital camcorder set up to record screen continuiously - focus etc. Go to the site on Safari and open up the 'Activity' menu item under menu item 'Window', making sure you can see as much as possible. You may have to be fast on the mouse and do site accesses and several scrolls to capture all the items on the activity window. Then comes the investigation where you enter the most reasonable looking url's shown on the video screen shots in the browser's address bar. Sometimes this actually works. On occasion you could substitute "FTP://" for the "HTTP://", depending on whether the web author knows basic unix security.

find some kind of web browser up to date enough to display it. Of course there could be a site error, and the item access could just be missing. I'm no hacker but I know a few things.
 
Just found some pics of Monitor 5's on the web via Reddit I'll save them here as well.
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This thread is subject to be revived as other folks come across Precise speakers, or can share more info , Photos and positive experiences. So no worries on bringing it back to life. :) I've never heard any of the models in question and It's unlikely that many if any, here has either. Not impossible but just not likely given the limited market reach of Precise even when they were actively promoting and marketing the brand they didn't end up in many folks living rooms.

Your best bet it to try to get a listen to them and decide for yourself. while the Precise monitor 5 is "RARE", rarity is a double edged sword. if there is ample HYPE and Buzz about an item and it has become desirable by myth , of which many products do , and some undeservingly so (Rogers, Chartwell and Spendor LS3/5a speakers , for me, is a product that is legendary for being legendary, there are better performing speakers for less or equal money yet the market values are rising like crazy... it's a "ME TOO" , lemming society we live in :) .)

Where the precise models got little more than a brief mention at the time of their introduction. so it's a Rarity with NO hype to support it's desirability or market value. which is something you might want to consider. if the costs to you will be the same as a branded model and you're one to change things up after a while of experiencing gear. A well known brand might be much easier to resell than the Monitor 5, you won't have to tell the PRECISE story and history , their name alone will carry familiarity for many and the web can do the rest. Precise, Audire, Tangent Acoustics, Audio Analyst, RDL Acoustics, RA Labs... the list goes on and on. yeah, no one is checking for those brands, no matter how great they may perform and sound. The average person will overlook them as if they are "white van" speakers.

so in short. Listen if you can and decide that way. It's a tough call though, because in this hobby it seems no one wants what no one's yapping about. :)

thanks for the great insights sir! points well taken.

i'll be auditioning said speakers today... though as a newbie, i wouldn't have much of a reference point. i'll just have to trust my ears, i guess. i'll chime back in if and when i do decide to get them.

p.s. i'm a sucker for "rare" stuff ;). i guess it's just the deviant in me.
 
i got 'em!

a considerable step up from my small bookshelves (a locally made set by one of our more recognized builders - based loosely on the Proac D1). while i can't really say much (very limited experience), they pair up quite nicely with my NAD 304. lots of bass, although i'm not sure if they are articulate/fast enough for some tracks. not much of a 3D effect, though to be honest, i don't really like that sort of thing. overall, i'm very happy with my purchase. i'll post some pics once i clean them up.

to those who have them, are they really as "unforgiving" (for poorly recorded tracks) as i think they are? or maybe it's just me?

also, how efficient are these? anyone tried them with tubes? vintage (ie. 70's) amps?
 
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seems that a few more Precise speakers have popped up on the market. I'll have to see if I can grab the pics to add them here as well.
 
I have heard Analog Addict's Monitor 10s numerous times. Just a beautifully neutral speaker, and musical as hell.
 
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