What Was The Price of The Following in the 70s

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Mark7

Mark7

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Teac 3340S plus mixer (new or used)
Teac 2340 plus mixer (new or used)
Teac 144 Portastudio (new)

Also, were these items available in the UK at the time? And if so, can I have the price in £s as well as $s. Thanks
 
I haven't any idea about UK prices or availability.

For the US, in the early 70s, The retail price of the A2340 was $800 with a street price of about $700, and the A3340 retailed at $1199 and was around $950 at mail order stores. Add about $50-100 for retail stores.

The mixers came in the late 70s. Retail for a Model 5 mixer was about $1500. Street prices were around $1250 or so. A Model 2 mixer was about $300.

There's a pretty full history of the Teac/Tascam decks here: Museum of Magnetic Tape Recording

As you can see, just outfitting a basic recording setup of 6 channels into a 4 track deck with a 2 channel mixdown tape could easily run you $2000+. That doesn't include monitors, amps, microphones or any of the other stuff. Considering that the average household income for the mid 70s was around $10,000, its a pretty big chunk of change!

That's one reason that I consider today's recording gear so cheap. A $400 computer, $200 interface, $100 microphone hooked to your stereo and you're up and running.
 
And how much was the 144? That site doesn't really give any obvious prices.
 
I have no clue on the Portastudios. By that time I had given up on recording, and stopped music for about 20 years, except for using my Dokorder 8140 to do an occasional voice-over program for the company for whom I worked.

If you look at some of the ads on the page, you can see a few prices.

I found something from a Billboard article which put the list price at $1100 in 1979. PortaStudio M144

On the Tascam webpage, they say the original price was $899. Tascam 20lb Recording Revolution. Maybe that was more the "street price".
 
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I have the year book from 74. You can't easily do the $ vs £ thing because the rate has varied crazily, but google will let you work it out.
Teac 3340S plus mixer (new or used) £445 Plus VAT which is 20% now, was 17.5% then.
Teac 2340 plus mixer (new or used) £382 Plus VAT which is 20% now, was 17.5% then.
Teac 144 Portastudio (new) There are no portastudios at all in the 1974 yearbook.
 
I'm guessing that in 1979/80 a 144 Portastudio and a "gently" used second hand 33/2340 plus Model 5 (or similar) would have been roughly the same price on both sides of the Atlantic.

I imagine the Portastudio's big selling points were its compactness and ease of use rather than its cheapness.
 
I'm sure another point in its favor would be that Type IV cassettes were about $2 a pop, where a 10" real of Ampex 456 would run you $15 to $20. You could go down to the local department store and buy 10 cassettes every day, but you would have to go to a real audio store or order via mail order. There was no internet, so it was read the magazines, call the phone number and put it on your Visa card. A week later, your box would arrive.
 
Was Sound on Sound going in 1979? I wonder if they have anything in their archives about the 144?
 
In 1980 (which is about when the first 144s would have been appearing in UK music stores) the average annual wage was approx £5,720; assuming you actually (a) had a job and (b) earned at least the average. The UK retail price (with VAT) would probably have been very close to the US price. So at £899.99 it would have cost around 16% of average earnings.

Not exactly a cheap proposition. Especially not in Thatcherite Britain.
 
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I bought an SM57 in the late 70s - it was nearly a weeks wages. A Phillip 550 TV in 1977 was £269, and I was earning £25 a week. In 1979 when I became a radio ham, a popular radio for people to buy was £299 - and I had to take three years finance to pay for it. Nowadays, you can buy something much better for £70. A 4K big TV is a fraction of a weeks wage.
 
Luckily for those of us in an "electronics" hobby, cost has been the inverse of the power. Where my first TI99/4A was $199 plus a $40 cassette for storing programs, and a $200 small TV. The computer I'm using right now cost me $450 in December, and it has an I7, SSD, monitor, 8gb RAM, plust networking and high definition screen.

When you consider that the wage index is about 4 times higher than it was in 1982, that means its the equivalent of about $120.

I'm not complaining!
 
Mark7 said:
Teac 3340S plus mixer (new or used)
Teac 2340 plus mixer (new or used)
Teac 144 Portastudio (new)

Also, were these items available in the UK at the time? And if so, can I have the price in £s as well as $s. Thanks
Click to expand...

Back in 1975 I paid $650.00
for my Teac A-2340

Jack :)
 
Mark7 said:
In 1980 (which is about when the first 144s would have been appearing in UK music stores) the average annual wage was approx £5,720; assuming you actually (a) had a job and (b) earned at least the average. The UK retail price (with VAT) would probably have been very close to the US price. So at £899.99 it would have cost around 16% of average earnings.

Not exactly a cheap proposition. Especially not in Thatcherite Britain.
Click to expand...

It was pretty much the same across the globe.

In 1975, for example, my gross annual salary was just under $5000. I bought a Revox HS77 for $700 which works to be about 14% of my salary.
 
Mark7 said:
In 1980 (which is about when the first 144s would have been appearing in UK music stores) the average annual wage was approx £5,720; assuming you actually (a) had a job and (b) earned at least the average. The UK retail price (with VAT) would probably have been very close to the US price. So at £899.99 it would have cost around 16% of average earnings.

Not exactly a cheap proposition. Especially not in Thatcherite Britain.
Click to expand...

I must have got a bargain in that case as mine cost me about £750 in the late 'eighties. Sold it on a few years later for just under £400.
 
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