SIHH 2012: Jaeger-LeCoultre Duometre Collection (VIDEO)
Jaeger-LeCoultre have been garnering a considerable amount of interest in their Duometre à Spherotourbillon recently and watching the official video about how it all works it’s not hard to see why. The question is though, what’s it really like?
The Duometre à Spherotourbillon
With the creation of the Duometre à Spherotourbillon, JLC claims to have the first tourbillon that can be set accurately. Now, before we can confirm this we must understand the difference between this watch and the “stop” tourbillon from Lange & Sohne. On the Lange the seconds hand is mounted on the tourbillion and to set the seconds it is possible to stop the tourbillon and then restart it in conjunction with a time signal. JLC’s offering however, allows you to reset the separate seconds hand back to the zero position without stopping the tourbillon; an intriguing development.
One of the primary aims of creating this watch was to produce a compact watch that has the maximum number of complications and still retains a high level of readability. The tourbillon revolves in two axes and is inclined by 20 degrees from the vertical. In the circular axis it revolves once every 30 seconds, at the same time it also processes one complete cycle every 15 seconds, the higher speeds are to improve overall accuracy.
The calibre 382 has a cylindrical balance spring and a larger than usual balance wheel vibrating at 21,600 vibrations per hour. The 18K pink gold case is 42mm by 14.1mm with a polished and satin-brushed finish.
The Duometre a Quartieme Lunaire 40.5
Also unveiled by the brand this year was the superb Duometre a Quartieme Lunaire, which like the Spherotourbillon features JLC’s patented Dual-Wing concept; this separates the power delivery of the time keeping elements from that used for the complications and so increases the accuracy of the watch.
Taking full advantage of this technological advancement, the Quartieme Lunaire 40.5 boasts an impressive list of complications including; hours, minutes, seconds, calendar and moon phases for both hemispheres and the startling jumping seconds moving in one sixth of a second increments.
All of this, care of the Calibre 381 movement, is packed into an 18K pink gold case 40.5 mm by 13.07mm – a truly amazing feat of watch-making.
The Final Word
The Spherotourbillon design seems to provide an interesting development in tourbillon technology which will undoubtedly be extremely popular and provide the basis for future models. This, combined with the improvements in the Master Control series will likely make for a successful 2012 for Jager-LeCoultre.
For more information please visit the official website: www.jaeger-lecoultre.com.
Category: Basel World & SIHH
i love these two watches so much, the video is removed above but i saw it before and it was impressive. definitely one to google.