SKU: V-5951-Portrait Portrait Speaker Kit

Visaton Speaker Kit - Portrait
Art. No. 5951

Visaton Portrait (left and right on wall, accessories not included) - shown assembled with suggested cabinets, not supplied.

Characteristics and Sound Properties
Many lovers of music have one problem in common: they want to listen to good music at a high quality of reproduction but they do not have the room to place the loudspeakers they would like to buy or they cannot find the right speakers to blend in with their furnishings and taste. What they need is loudspeakers that do not look like loudspeakers.

And so we developed the PORTRAIT design, which can be hung on the wall and looks like a picture. The objective was to keep the cabinet as flat as possible. The PORTRAIT will be satisfied with only 40 mm in depth. If you take the time to make some more complex cut-outs, you can even reduce this to 34 mm.

This is made possible by the use of particularly slim 13 cm FR 12 - 8 Ohm loudspeakers as woofers. Combined with the SC 5 - 8 Ohm tweeter and the specially designed crossover, this produces a sophisticated satellite speaker unit. Due to the small cabinet, low bass cannot be produced by the PORTRAIT. As a result, the bass range below 100 Hz is best covered by a subwoofer (e.g. SUB-W 20.39 ). This combination with a powerful subwoofer means that the PORTRAIT set-up is a visually appealing and acoustically highly effective system which can, if required, be extended. If the wall space in front of and behind the listening position are free, additional PORTRAIT speakers can be hung to produce a multi-channel system for home theatre and music.

The point about the PORTRAIT is the option of fitting a fabric front to the cabinet which can vary, depending on the surroundings, e.g. single-coloured or brightly coloured silk. Of course, one can always put one's creative skills to work and make one's own silk covers adorned with favourite motifs. There are no limits to your imagination.

Extract from "Selbst ist der Mann": The aim of this VISATON development was to produce speakers that were so flat, they could be hung on the wall like pictures. Used on their own, these speakers, fitted with a high-quality 2-band system using a 13-cm low- to mid-range unit and a dome tweeter, sounded a little thin - the bass end was missing, which is completely understandable with cabinets of this size. However, combined with a powerful active subwoofer, whose low frequencies cannot be located by the human ear and can thus be positioned anywhere in the room, they are transformed into a visually unobtrusive but acoustically very potent system, which can be also be combined with other Portraits or other Visaton models to make up a fully-blown surround sound system.

Extract from Klang & Ton: The Portrait, which is the name of this VISATON speaker, requires a depth of no more than 40 millimetres. In our opinion, that must be a record. This flat speaker can survive without a subwoofer due to its wall-mounting but, in that case, will not produce any breathtaking surprises in terms of volume. The speakers demonstrated their true colours, however, during our listening test in conjunction with the subwoofer recommended by VISATON. In that combination, the speakers made a good impression and produced natural, clear sound, provided the volume was kept to within the optimum range. With voices the Portrait seemed to be particularly at home. The whole effect is rather fascinating because the music appears to come out of the wall as if from a stage. The spatial qualities were good, offering clear sound reproduction across the full range, and without the treble range becoming too poignant. When combined with the subwoofer, the Portrait speakers prove to be not just a stop-gap but rather a fully viable set of loudspeakers producing a sound experience that goes far beyond what you would expect from a set-up at this price level, around 100 a pair, and with such an unusual appearance. Congratulations to VISATON and thanks for producing such a brave concept which will help to solve many a loudspeaker positioning problem.

Technical Specifications

Frequency and Impedance Response

Frequency Response and Impedance Graph

Exploded Cabinet Drawing

Exploded Speaker Box Drawing

Assembly
The cabinet consists of two panels (front and rear panels) and narrow strips to make up the remaining sides. Add to this a frame for clamping the fabric which is removable and simply pressed into place. The nine strips arranged as a rectangle are crucial to strengthen the large-scale construction and are glued onto the rear panel with the side strips. The front panel is not glued but screwed to enable you to insert the crossover and damping material in the cabinet.

It is possible to make the cabinet even slimmer then shown in the drawing. The depth can be reduced to 34 mm if 14 mm strips are used for both the sides and strengthening struts. In that case, it is necessary to cut out a 5 mm deep recess behind the tweeter in addition to the existing opening for the magnet of the woofer. The crossover will also have to be let into the rear panel by 5 mm.

For reasons of appearance, no terminal connections are used. The cable is soldered directly to the crossover. The cable is led out through a small hole in the base and concealed in a cable duct on the wall. It is even more aesthetically pleasing if the cable comes through the rear panel and completely hidden in the plaster or a false wall. The two drivers are recessed when mounted (4 mm) to enable the fabric cover to be in contact with the front panel. A thin silk material is ideal for the fabric covers. Linen and other firmer fabrics are less permeable to sound and will result in a noticeable reduction in the sound output in the higher range so they are not suitable. The front panel should be painted black to prevent the outlines of the dark drivers showing through the thin fabric cover.

To fit the speaker to the wall, drill and plug two holes in the wall and screw in two screws, but leave approx. 11 mm of the screws protruding. The speaker cabinet has two corresponding holes to hang over the screws.

Internal Damping
One mat of damping material is cut into strips and distributed uniformly between the strengthening struts in the cabinet.

Component Parts List for Each Box - Supplied with Kit
The kit comes with all necessary components (see list below for one box), one set if the speaker is an each, or two sets for a pair, see price above for details.

Speaker Cabinet Material List to Make 1 Box - Not Supplied with Kit

Speaker Cabinet Dimensions

Loudspeaker Box Construction Diagram - all dimensions in mm.

Crossover - Supplied with Kit Already Assembled

Speaker Kit Crossover Circuit