Greubel Forsey Double Balance Sapphire

 

Greubel Forsey Double Balance Sapphire

Clockwork Rhapsody in Blue. high quality replica watches

For many people who read criticism, it's a truism: the critic's job is to remain objective. I think that's actually a wrong idea - well, maybe not a wrong idea per se, but a wrong way of expressing a certain expectation that critics will be honest. When criticizing utilitarian objects, there are always some indisputably objective characteristics—the weight of a car, the 0-60 time, the available torque of an electric mixer motor—these numbers have nothing to do with taste. But when it comes to design and aesthetics, things get murkier. It's hard to say that anything is objectively truly ugly, since "ugly" is essentially a value judgment rather than an objective measure (there are some issues with Comic Sans, but the font is not so much objectively ugly as Saying it is objectively ugly) is often abused, which is not the same thing).

Critics and criticism in design and aesthetics are not objective but grounded in subjectivity and supported by extensive experience and careful reflection, and when both readers and critics understand the subjectivity of taste. Most interesting and useful. With this in mind, I wanted to try and make a case for one of the most beautiful watches I have ever seen: the Greubel Forsey Double Balance Sapphire. Richard Mille Rafael Nadal replica

Since the company's founding in 2004, Greubel Forsey's work has been closely associated with the tourbillon, and for good reason - many of the company's basic inventions are actually variations of Breguet's inventions , originally developed by Breguet to compensate for balance errors, the balance in the balance is amplified by the gravity effect at different positions. However, the company made a number of very spectacular tilting and multi-axis tourbillons, which are manifestations of a deeper technical interest and a more fundamental interest in Greubel Forsey's identity, namely the question of chronometry. Although there have been some complex problems at Greubel Forsey in recent years that were not specifically about rate stability (among them their experiments with the equation of time and the Grand Sonnerie), the single most consistent thread connecting all of their innovations has been solving fundamental problems The tourbillon was designed to address and test some of the aspects of the tourbillon that the watch raised questions about.

Perhaps the most important of these is that the tourbillon was designed when watches did not yet exist. There have been sporadic reports about Bregut's previous bracelet watches. For example, one such watch was recorded in the royal jewelery inventory of Queen Elizabeth I of England, but these watches were usually more for curiosity than serious timepieces. For a pocket watch, which is typically either in a vertical position in a pocket or lying flat on a table when not being carried, having a single average rate for all vertical positions means that once you know that average rate, you can adjust the rate for the flat position to With a match, as George Daniels wrote, you should theoretically have a perfect timekeeper.replica Zenith Pilot Watches

The problem with watches, however, is that, generally speaking, they are rarely in a completely flat or completely vertical position during daily use, making the tourbillon somewhat questionable from a practical perspective - Daniels' former apprentice, now Roger Smith, the master watchmaker of HODINKEE, once pointed out that in modern watches, from a purely technical point of view, the tourbillon has almost no value. However, you can create variations of the tourbillon that could theoretically work in a watch, including multi-axis tourbillons as well as tilting tourbillons and tilting balances in non-tourbillon watches that can adjust to gravity. At such an angle, gravity's interference with rate stability is minimized whenever the watch is spent in either of its two most extreme positions (i.e., completely flat or completely vertical).

The most significant change to the tourbillon in modern watchmaking is the birth of the multi-axis tourbillon. In 1980, British watchmaker Anthony Randall received the first patent for such a tourbillon, and Richard Good produced the first working model. In 2003, AHCI member Thomas Prescher produced the first multi-axis watch tourbillon, followed by Jaeger-LeCoultre and Girard-Perregaux (both companies Has a long history of tourbillon manufacturing). Although the tourbillon is a regulating mechanism (which, from a purist's point of view, is not a complication per se but a regulating device) and is closely related to mitigating the effects of gravity on rate stability, other solutions are also possible. These include double hairsprings applied to a single balance, using two balances on the same axis with the hairsprings having opposite fixed points (like the Audemars Piguet Double Balance), and as we saw with the Greubel Forsey Double Balance As you can see, the two balance wheels are tilted relative to the main plate and each other. Having the balance wheels tilted at a specific angle to each other is key because this means that the position error experienced by one balance at any given position will tend to be offset by the error experienced by the other balance. replica mens watches

The two balances are connected by Greubel Forsey's constant spherical difference, which generates an average rate for both balances. The constant spherical differential also acts as an equalizer; it is a constant-force mechanism that supplies energy to the balance wheel via a small coil spring that rewinds every four minutes. This again relates to the concept of eliminating the interfering effects of gravity on rate stability - if balances maintain a constant amplitude, they will be able to avoid the exaggeration of errors due to gravity that occurs when a balance's amplitude begins to decrease, as is the case with any watch The power reserve is running out. Energy for winding the auxiliary coil spring that maintains a constant spherical differential comes from two mainspring barrels, providing a 72-hour power reserve.

Traditional solutions to stabilize the rate in the face of gravity also exist - the balance is free-sprung, since the traditional regulator index constitutes a theoretical interference with the natural "breathing" of the balance spring as it expands and contracts; the balance The hairspring itself has a Phillips overcoil terminal curve to ensure that the breathing of the balance spring is as perfectly concentric as possible. In modern watchmaking, these advantages are sometimes considered more theoretical than practical, but it is worth noting that both the free-sprung balance and the upper outer terminal curve can be found in modern Rolex movements.

It's a very interesting watch purely from a technical horology perspective - it's at the forefront of some deep curiosity and a very compulsive curiosity about how far it can really go in response to basic issues of influence. Gravity on the watch when exploring a specific research avenue. This sort of thing has its own very serious intellectual fascination, apart from any aesthetic concerns, or you could say, if taken far enough, that this obsessive pursuit of a single idea to its logical conclusion reaches an aesthetic; e.g. , Omega's tourbillon chronometer watches (12 of which were produced as experiments in the late 1940s) have a strange beauty, although they were certainly not made primarily to shock connoisseurs aesthetically. target (even, for now, level two or three). But when you combine the inherent charm of machinery with an equally obsessive pursuit of beauty – in design, movement construction, and especially movement machining – you get something that seems to defy superlatives. swiss replica watches

One of the most interesting features of traditional watchmaking is that for much of its history, when practiced at the highest level from a technical perspective, there was often little discernible difference between the aesthetics of a mechanism and its technical merits. This isn’t always the case (the aforementioned Omega Chronometer Tourbillon is a great example), but when watchmaking combines superb craftsmanship with an exhaustive pursuit of optimal performance, you get something A kind of machine that almost exists to celebrate the beauty. There is no other place to go today. In the Double Balancier Sapphire, it's immediately obvious that British watchmaking and Swiss-French heritage have a degree of investment in the expression of classic movement finishing methods that is rarely seen elsewhere in modern watchmaking. Of course, having these two styles combined at such a high level in one timepiece is a design language that Greubel Forsey seems to have cornered the market on.

The use of British Haute Horlogerie design cues and decorative techniques is key to the design and visual impact of the Double Balance. British watchmaking had never attempted to make thin watches, striving for the special elegance of Continental watchmaking, especially after the invention of the cylindrical escapement made true flat watchmaking possible for the first time. . There is no doubt that a watch with a 72-hour power reserve, two tilting balances, a hairspring and a combined wheel train constant motion and differential does not aspire to the same physical proportions as the Vacheron Historiques Ultra-Fine 1955. , but in fact, the reassuring over-sturdiness seen in handmade British pocket watches of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is part of their charm, lives on in Greubel Forsey’s watchmaking. (By the way, while it's a big watch, the 13.81mm thickness isn't too much given what's going on.) replica Jacob & Co. Astronomia Casino

The unapologetic three-dimensionality of the watch means there is a sense of depth, and many design choices were made that would not have been possible if Greubel Forsey were trying to keep the watch as flat as possible. It would be easy to describe this watchmaking craftsmanship with analogies to watchmaking or even pocket watch construction (as we mentioned, it has strong ties to the British pocket watch tradition), but at the same time, this is essentially a watch that is The meaning of a fanatical search for the most perfect solution to the problems posed by watches. Although it is inextricably linked to clocks and watchmaking, it can really only be used as a wristwatch.

Opening up a watch face to expose the underlying mechanism could easily not work. Part of the reason for this is that the thickness of the dial makes it appear to be a significant component of the watch's overall weight. To point out just one element that really brings the entire composition together, the dial’s black polished steel central element is more than just a decorative element meant to connect the deep blue color of the dial to the rest of the watch, although it does that too— It is actually a functional part of the movement, acting as the cock supporting the hour and minute hands, as well as the superimposing wheel of the gear train beneath it. replica Audemars Piguet

Since the founding of Greubel Forsey, there has been almost no watch that has not aroused great interest in some way (and often more than one), but the Double Balancier Sapphire is particularly noteworthy. Its beauty is a unity - James Joyce quoted Aquinas in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" that beauty consists of three things: wholeness, harmony, clarity (wholeness, harmony and radiance) . . Each of these three requirements can be unraveled almost indefinitely (and absolutely ad nauseam, depending on your tolerance for aesthetic theory in watch criticism; I may have pushed my luck too far) But I think it doesn't hurt to briefly explore what that means in this context.

The Double Balanced Sapphire is not just a portable museum of horological finishing techniques, nor an example of gorgeous polychromatic industrial design, nor a (portable) museum of technological solutions to the problem of gravity and its impact on rate stability. It is a combination of all three, each element executed in a way that makes the watch a physical narrative of emotional and intellectual commitment to how we perceive and try to capture time, which is so difficult to capture that even today , the best we can do is throw up our hands in defeat and define time as "time measured by a clock." Because of its exploration of every aspect and its persistent pursuit of appearance beauty, it rises to the level of beauty and the level of art, making it more than just a timepiece, but it cannot do that without its essence as a timepiece. at this point. so. I have always believed that every truly beautiful watch is so because it successfully combines mechanics with aesthetics; otherwise it is either just a design or fashion statement, or a tool. I hasten to add that there's nothing wrong with either, but sometimes, no matter what you're interested in and have the ability to actually wear, it's nice to see that this centuries-old art and craft can still be elevated to a modern level Very good. Art. best replica watches