Yes. If we assume only 5-10% of musicians with a decent, self-supporting living from composing/playing/performing alone (most others work somewhere in the “music-sector”, e.g. as teacher or as clerc of a record label or collecting society), only 0.5–2.5% have a stable middle-class income from artistic music alone, and roughly 0.01–0.3% have a upper-class income from artistic music alone and can afford to spend 11k£ for such a synthesizer.
I saw that Pete Townsend has donated his synths to a school in West London.
That includes a Yamaha GX-1 and an EMS modular. That’s some of the rarest (and largest) synths ever made and would have cost the equivalent of hundreds of thousands at that time.
Not too many muscle in the 1970s would have been able to buy a GX-1.
Probably some of both, but 11k is extremely reasonable for this. If I understand correctly, it has 3x complete subtractive synths per key (not just 3 oscillators into 1 filter) x 49 keys. A typical analog polyphonic synth has maybe 8 voices.
The comparison is more like bulldozer vs. car than BMW vs. Toyota - entirely new capabilities are unlocked
I want to say I agree, but since this is 50 year old tech, wouldn't there be newer mass produced products that do the same thing at a fraction of the price? Even if purely analog it would benefit from economies of scale, miniaturization, etc.
The 'current'? They sell out since Korg started this convoluted order "process", wbich isn't even one, since you hear conflicting things in different countries from the 'distributors".