Telefunken!

Of course I had to start looking at the currency sites
https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/projects/currency.htm
2.43 DM to a $ in 1982 so $534 in 1982 or $1649 in 2022 dollars.
Slightly cheaper than the newly released Commodore 64
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2018/06/22/cost-of-a-computer-the-year-you-were-born/36156373/

 

DM 1.298,- is the equivalent of € 650,-

i remember i bought 1982 my 1st. VIC20 2nd hand for DM 300,- (€ 150,-) and a new C64 was at release roundabout DM 1.200,-

so the price for a Hifi Studio 1 was quite a huge amount - when you consider that the buying power has decreased over the years - but consumer electronics become extremely affordable…

b.t.w. i still have my good old VIC20 somewhere, also my later SX-64, but i never ever owned a Hifi Studio 1

 

The C64 dropped in price rapidly after launch. Publicly Jack Tramiel said he was producing "Computers for the masses not the classes". Privately he wanted to get revenge on Texas Instruments for almost bankrupting Commodore by selling complete calculators at retails for less than they charged Commodore for the ICs. By about 1984 I bought a brand new TI99-4A computer for £60 after TI had said they were pulling out of the home computer market.

Whenever I come up with a high price for something like the Telefunken I then compare it with things people are buying today like Apple MacBook Pros.
I had originally wanted to compare the price of the Telefunken at release with an Apple II. Those were really expensive in the U.K. so much so that sales were negligable, unlike the C64, which at a reduced price was in the top three computers (the top seller being the Sinclair Spectrum).

 

That Telefunken was worth it, considering that several traditional, low-powered, non-hifi boomboxes were priced at similar amounts, just because they "looked cool" with 8" woofers and more advanced tape features that seemed impressive, like autoreverse, soft-touch, Dolby, song search, etc. But when you wanted real hifi, and real power, the Telefunken was the way to go.

 

all those units from the ad weren't bad. just found my CFM3 walkman back, well made, even if most probably an aka (just don't know what from...)

 

Telefunken Hi-Fi 1 Studio impresses with its impressiveness and German quality factor. Two colors of the front panel are known. Although the device has a carrying handle, battery power and detachable speakers, due to its weight it is still a stationary device, not a portable one.