By the 1980s, the Braun audio programme had been reduced to a single system, the Atelier. One result of this contraction was the migration of audio engineers into the alarm clock segment. They brought with them a number of technologies that had earlier been applied to audio, amongst them, the use of the operating finger to a complete a circuit, a novelty earlier applied to the controls of the PDS 550 record player, 1977. 

The almost irrational number of alarm clock variations, 62 designs produced within the period 1975 - 1995, is directly related to the decline of innovation within the moribund audio segment and its displacement into an area where cost managers would still tolerate formal and technical experimentation.