Great Swiss Watches – Vantage Points of Them
Like tourbillion and perpetual calendar, minute repeater is a complication of mechanical watches. Simply, a minute repeater is a watch able to tell time. The repeater mechanism can be activated by pushing the button on the end protruding from the side of the clock. Then the tinny hammers activated by the repeater mechanism strike the bells coiled inside the watch case to make the chiming sounds.
This function might be very common in the electronic watches with a standard female voice reading the hour, the minute and the second. However, the minute repeater function is the biggest challenge in the mechanical watch making: placing the repeating spring system in the limited space; sometimes for beautiful chiming sounds, three or more sets of springs and hammers are added; many components are as tiny as hair. Various famous watch producers make time repeaters to prove their outstanding techniques and improve the international status rather than make profit.
A minute repeater can produce three different sounds to distinguish hours, quarter hours, and minutes in the striking sequence. It’s a successful combination of acoustics and dynamics. Since it’s hard to fit three bulky wire gongs into a watch movement, the repeater only uses two gongs and the third sound is made by striking the two gongs rapidly in sequence. The two gongs produce different sounds: one is higher-“bing”; the other is lower-“bong”. Invariably, the lower tone represents the hour; the higher tone represents the quarter hour. And for the minute, the two gongs cooperate to make the sounds: first the lower tone; then the higher tone. The following is an example of how a minute repeater tells the time. If the time is 3:32, the minute repeater will sound 3 low tones representing 3 hours, 2 sequence tones representing 30 minutes, and 2 high tones representing 2 minutes: “bong, bong, bong, bing-bong, bing-bong, bing, bing”. You can imagine the interesting and pleasant melody.
Timbre is the spirit of a minute repeater as well as a decisive factor evaluating the watch quality and the price. For minute repeaters of million dollars, the sounds must be clear, melodious, and deep moving. However, the cheap ones might be a bit thick and turbid.
Time can be listened. When the night is deep, you can hear the flowing time with the ticking of the escapement and enjoy the beautiful chime produced by the magical repeater.
For more information about Swiss replica watches, please visit http://www.watcheslux.com/
Processing your request, Please wait....
