GITM posted this on FB today and thought was rather interesting - thanks Dewald - just makes you wonder how many other heads of state are actually into HIFI
I guess I figured the president of a major global power would be too busy planning world domination to be fooling around with audio gear, but a recent photo shoot of Russian president Medvedev at a breakfast meeting with Vladimir Putin shows that he has some pretty serious gear in his office system.
This isn't the type of system some casual rich guy who just asked for a fancy stereo would get. Things like the old school Technics RS-1500 reel-to-reel tape recorder and the Avid turntable for his vinyl LPs show that Medvedev is seriously into this stuff.
The speakers and amplifiers come from a Swiss company called Daniel Hertz SA, founded by the legendary audio designer Mark Levinson. The massive M1 speakers go for a cool $75,000 a pair, a price which makes the $12,000-a-pair M5 Telikos mono amplifiers seem positively cheap. To be fair, it does look like he's using two pairs to bi-amp the speakers. Add in $8,000 for the Daniel Hertz M6 preamp, $20,000 for the Avid Acutus Reference SP turntable, $6,150 for the Naim Audio CDX2 CD player, plus the tape deck, cables, along with a tonearm and cartridge for the turntable, and we're talking well north of $150,000 of the people's money so he can listen to some tunes.
And what kind of tunes does he listen to on this dream system? Apparently he's a huge Deep Purple fan. Go figure.
I guess I figured the president of a major global power would be too busy planning world domination to be fooling around with audio gear, but a recent photo shoot of Russian president Medvedev at a breakfast meeting with Vladimir Putin shows that he has some pretty serious gear in his office system.
This isn't the type of system some casual rich guy who just asked for a fancy stereo would get. Things like the old school Technics RS-1500 reel-to-reel tape recorder and the Avid turntable for his vinyl LPs show that Medvedev is seriously into this stuff.
The speakers and amplifiers come from a Swiss company called Daniel Hertz SA, founded by the legendary audio designer Mark Levinson. The massive M1 speakers go for a cool $75,000 a pair, a price which makes the $12,000-a-pair M5 Telikos mono amplifiers seem positively cheap. To be fair, it does look like he's using two pairs to bi-amp the speakers. Add in $8,000 for the Daniel Hertz M6 preamp, $20,000 for the Avid Acutus Reference SP turntable, $6,150 for the Naim Audio CDX2 CD player, plus the tape deck, cables, along with a tonearm and cartridge for the turntable, and we're talking well north of $150,000 of the people's money so he can listen to some tunes.
And what kind of tunes does he listen to on this dream system? Apparently he's a huge Deep Purple fan. Go figure.
