One of the most difficult watch complications to produce, a minute repeater transforms a watch from mere timekeeping device to miniature music box. Below we take a look at 10 minute repeaters ? and other, even more sophisticated chiming watches ? that are more than just bells and whistles.
The A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk Striking Time has a rose-gold case and hands and a silver dial. Unlike most repeaters and other chiming watches, it has its chiming mechanism integrated into the dial design. The black-polished steel hammers are located on either side of the large small-seconds subdial at 6 o?clock. The hammer on the right strikes the quarter hours and the one on the left, the full hours. The two gongs, embedded in a recess between the dial and the bezel, are also visible from the dial side. Every 15 minutes, the mechanism triggers the striking of one of the gongs ? three high-pitched chimes for each quarter hour and one low-pitched chime for the top of every full hour. The watch has a device that can deactivate the chiming mechanism whenever the owner wishes to not be disturbed by it: Simply press the push-piece at 4 o?clock and the hammers raise away from the gongs and hold in place, thus silencing the watch. For more details, click here. A. Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Striking Time
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie ? which went from concept watch to commercial model in just a year ? is the result of eight years of acoustic research by the brand’...