ding-dong - Meridian Audio

A computer monitor showing
sound waveforms during the
testing of a minute-repeater
watch at Meridian Audio.
ding-dong
The minute repeater is one of watchmaking’s most impressive inventions, but as On Time
found during a series of sophisticated tests, each brand has a unique personality
T
hroughout history, striking
clocks that marked the hours
were invaluable in the
regulation of communities.
Then an invention of necessity, the 17th-century repeater, came
along and addressed something the clock
never delivered—how to know the time in
the dark without waiting for the chimes.
Because of its size, the sound that results
from this fascinating horological complication is different in both scale and
quality to that of a striking clock. To find
out more, last December, at our Meridian
audio laboratories in Cambridge, we
tested eight minute repeaters picked from
the leading names in haute horology.
The watches all had a common feature:
to “hear” the time, one slides a lever on
the left side of the body. This action winds
a separate spring, so that the main power
is not disturbed, and starts a regulating
mechanism that sequences through the
chimes. The scope of a minute repeater is
therefore within arm’s reach and, because
of its small size, the quantity of sound
generated—while sufficient at a distance of
0.5m—is not for sharing in a room.
These watches have two different gongs
inside: one to strike the hours, another,
higher in pitch, for the minutes, while both
in rapid low-high sequence indicate the
quarters. Each gong sound has a hammer
strike and a bell-like tone that gradually
decays (to use the sound-engineering
term), or fades.
T
he overall sound sequence has up to
four more components: the regular tick;
the initial sound of arming the repeater
mechanism; a whirring from the regulator
mechanism; and, in some, a click at the
sequence end. These mechanical devices
show small irregularities between strikes—
P H OTO G R A P HS
by
RICHARD LEGGE
indeed, part of the charm is that the sound
is slightly different every time. The gongs
are normally curved metal rods that fit
around the inside of the body.
The dimensions and material of the
gong govern the pitch of the note and the
structure and “decay” of the overtones.
The persistence of the lower—so-called
“hum tone”—of the gong is also modified
by the case of the watch, and by whether
or not it rests on a wrist. The sound of
each gong is similar to a chime or bell
and, as with all percussion instruments,
the exact location and duration of the
strike action affects the sound. So there is
a great deal the watchmaker can do to
“tune” the sound of each chime in
addition to just picking the fundamental
notes. As we found, some are more elegant
or musical than others. We settled on a
combination of measurement, analysis
and listening tests for the eight watches.
Wat e r fa l l g r a p h co u r e st y o f m e r i d i a n g ro u p
BY BOB STUART
Reflecting its use, we captured the sound
of each watch on both a table-top and
wrist, using a high-quality recording
system at the close range of 6cm. These
recordings were made in Meridian’s
anechoic chamber, which floats on a
suspension and is lined so that it is totally
silent when the door is closed. It is so quiet
that in some of the recordings we could
hear the heartbeat of Meridian’s Michael
Capp, the assistant who operated the
watches in the chamber and processed the
resulting data. The recordings were then
analysed by computer to estimate the
apparent loudness (audibility) and reveal
the harmonic structure, decay and
harmonicity of each chime.
A comprehensive assessment of the
characteristics of each sound called for
careful listening as well. We recruited a
panel whose vocations include the creation
and analysis of sound, and were delighted
that John Rutter CBE agreed to join us.
John’s renowned skills as a composer,
choral director and recording producer
brought a unique perspective. Another
member, Melvyn Goldsmith, is a respected
Musical Movement
While not strictly speaking a minute
repeater (so not included in the
testing), Girard-Perregaux’s Opera
Three (above) sounds the hours
with a melody. It’s like a minature
mechanical jukebox or pint-sized
pianola, with a lever that allows
the wearer to select between their
own choice of music.
British violin maker whose intuition on the
relationship between materials and the
resulting sound was invaluable. I was able
to add psychoacoustic insights and more
than 30 years experience in the design of
high-quality sound systems. On Time
editor Nick Foulkes brought his knowledge
of the high watchmaking industry.
B
ased on measurement and listening,
we were able to identify six dimensions
for comparison: loudness, background
noise, match (of the tone and pitch of the
gongs), richness, purity and musicality.
The watches fell into two distinct groups
as far as quantity of sound (loudness) is
concerned. Sheer volume of sound might
be an important factor—Vacheron
Constantin and Jaeger-LeCoultre were
more than twice as loud as the quietest.
There were also two groups when it
came to the background whirring noise of
the repeater regulator mechanism. The
quietest by far was the Jaeger-LeCoultre.
In the Corum this “machinery noise” was
felt to be intrusive and as “not helpful” in
the Piaget—though as a vintage from the
early 1950s this watch would not have
benefitted from more recent technological
advances. But despite having a mid-rank
background noise level, the Audemars
Piguet was liked because it was smooth
and “evoked a spinning trout reel”. So, in
this regard, both quality and quantity of
the noise matters.
Richness refers to the amount of lowerpitched hum sounds in the gongs. All
these watches strike quite high notes and
most emit maximum energy of between
4kHz and 10kHz. Although a very
sensitive region for our hearing, 4kHz
corresponds with the very top notes on a
piano. The vintage Piaget was unique in
“sounding” a whole octave lower than the
other watches.
Next comes the strike and decay of each
frequency in the sound. Some of the
watches produce sounds much higher in
frequency than the 20kHz humans can
hear. The panel’s favourites in this
category were the “self-assured” Audemars
Electrical equipment
in the test laboratory.
You Rang?
The minute repeater is a watch in
which tiny hammers beat against
circular “gongs” coiled around the
movement. It uses a combination of
high and low tones to sound the
hours, quarter-hours and minutes,
and is regarded by many as the
apotheosis of horological
complications.
The minute-repeater is also one of
the earliest horological inventions,
dating from the Middle Ages, when
monasteries rigged up crude
blacksmith-built tolling timepieces to
wake monks for their early-morning
prayers. By the Renaissance, the
technology had been miniaturised.
It was in the 17th century that
quarter-repeating watches were
made, enabling the wearer to check
the time by operating a mechanism
that beat out the hour and quarters
on the inside of the case.
Horological polymath Abraham
Louis Breguet put the gong into
watches and thereafter it was a case
of refining the technology. The
popularity of the minute repeater
declined after the advent of electric
light and then luminous hands and
dials; but in the haute horlogerie
boom of the past 20 years this
engaging, easily appreciated and
expensive complication has enjoyed
a Lazaran comeback.
Left: Close-up of
microphone and
watch at Meridian.
Centre: the anechoic
chamber. Right:
electronic circuitry.
MAY
2 0 0 9
www.vanityfair.co.uk
V ANITY
FAIR
ON
T IME
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1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Model
Loudness
Audemars Piguet
Noise
Corum
Franck Müller
IWC
Jaeger-LeCoultre
Vacheron Constantin
7
6
8
4
5
4
8% +2dB
1
1
1
88dB 0.2% 0dB
1% -6dB
85dB 6
7
7
3
2
2
-1dB
8
8
6
88dB 0.2% -2dB
94dB 0.1% -1dB
2
3
3
5
4
5
0.02% Piguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s “good round
hum with a multiplicity of pitches” and
the Franck Müller for its “very pleasing
rainbow of pitches”.
P
urity and musicality emerged as
features in the listening test. By pure,
we mean that each gong sound has a
related or sophisticated harmonic
structure—it is possible for a percussion
instrument to produce overtones which
are not all harmonically related and the
result can be impure or “rough”, but
occasionally inspired. Again, the Franck
Müller was liked as a “complex ring,
carefully tuned”, along with the Audemars
Piguet, which sounded “like bells rather
than a glockenspiel”. The Jaeger-LeCoultre
evoked “the reassuring sound of a
grandfather clock downstairs” and had
“good pitch with a clear ting”. By contrast,
the gong of the Vacheron Constantin was
compared to “tapping a glass with a fork”.
Almost of necessity, these sound
descriptions are radical, but they do
convey the impression they made on us.
Musicality refers strictly to the sound
sequence: its pace, timing and intervals.
The music interval of a fifth in the IWC
seemed to “not quite work musically”; the
major third of the Bulgari was “not
xx
V ANITY FAIR
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Purity Musicality
2% +6dB
95dB
Piaget
Richness
38% +5dB
85dB 83dB 86dB BUlgari
Match
unpleasant—like a small glockenspiel”.
The sharper-than-major-third interval in
the Audemars Piguet seemed “more
sophisticated”. Unusually, the Franck
Müller had only a semitone between the
gongs but “sounded as though great care
had been taken in the tuning”.
Each of the eight watches, in its own
way, is a tour de force of engineering and
design; some have more features than
others and their sound is just one of many
www.vanityfair.co.uk
(1) Audemars
Piguet Jules Audemars
Minute Repeater Tourbillon
with Chrongraph. (2)
BUlgari Portuguese
Minute Repeater. (3)
Corum Tourbillon
Cathedrale Minute
Repeater. (4) Franck
Müller Minute Repeater
Imperial Tourbillon. (5)
IWC Minute Repeater
in 18-carat rose gold. (6)
Jaeger-LeCoultre
Master Minute
Repeater in platinum.
(7) Piaget Vintage,
early 1950s 18-carat
gold Minute Repeater.
(8) Vacheron
Constantin Vintage
Minute Repeater Patrimony.
Franck Müller: waterfall graph of strike and decay.
elements of differentiation. When this
project was suggested we were not sure
how different the watches would sound.
We were intrigued to find that, as the table
above shows, in this elevated realm where
no detail is too minor, there were clear
differences and preferences. �
The recordings and more technical results
can be downloaded at http://media.meridianaudio.com/watches.
Time Machines
Minute repeater
Watch with a user-operated
mechanism employing a slower low
tone (dong) to sound the hours, a
faster high (ding) tone to sound the
minutes and a combination tone (dingdong) to sound the quarter-hours.
quarters are sounded when activated.
Grande Sonnerie
Strikes hours and quarters automatically
every 15 minutes; and hours, minutes
and quarters when activated.
Carillon
Sounds the quarter-hours.
An elaborate pealing mechanism of
gongs of different pitch.
Petite Sonnerie
Westminster Chime
Sounds the hour and individual
quarters without repeating the hour
automatically. Hours, minutes and
A mechanism that plays a melody on
each quarter—named after the Great
Clock at the Palace of Westminster.
Quarter repeater
may
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