It can cost anyone close to ten thousand dollars in any vintage market to have one. with a historical heritage of over fifty plus years.
History
The brand or the company of the product dates back to 1903. This brand was a joint venture by two small companies known as Siemens & Halske and AGL.
Siemens and Halske were working for the German Military at that time. They were mainly building wireless communication for the German Army. And then AGL was working for the Imperial Navy of Germany.
They came together and joined forces with the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II’s advice from there. This joined venture created the Telefunken. The name Telefunken was very catchy and meaningful. As the prefix, tele has a Latin origin, and “Funken” is a German word that means spark.
From being formed, Telefunken ruled the technology market of the 1900s with its different ventures. And the experience consists of wireless radio communications, television to video cameras, microphones, and preamplifiers.
But it was around 1947 when Telefunken started distributing the world-famous U47. U47 is the first switchable pattern condenser microphone ever produced. And thus, it became trendy in the market of microphones.
Back then, ribbon microphones were most prevalent in recording studios. But then the new arrival of U47 took the market by storm and replaced the previous ones.
The ELA M 251/251E
The designer of U47, Georg Neumann, decided not to renew the distribution contract with Telefunken even though it was pretty famous. And this is why the U47 got pulled from the distribution.
The AGL got the new contract to distribute some same quality but different products. And from there, one of the best microphones that came out was ELA M 251. After coming out, it became something legendary with time. introduced to this world In 1959, the ELA M 251/251E.
But sadly, it was in production for only a few years.
It was in production from 1959 to 1962. produced in the market for Recording studios. Still considered one of the best-sounding microphones ever produced
The ELA M 251/251 E microphone was not available for around four decades. But with time, it got the legendary status. And its smaller number of the original production with its fragility made it very rare and valuable. Then this led to the rebirth of Telefunken.
