F.P. Journe

Mech
1986

• Show profile
• Show other posts

My latest acquisition, a Resonance

When I was hunting down my Datograph, I was comparing it against Journe's Resonance then. My emphasis was on movement and you know what I picked.



Actually there were many reasons I gave Journe a miss back then. It's design was too 'bold' for an old man like me. I like traditional, safe design and somewhat dressy and I was after a chronograph so there was only one choice. I didn't researched much on it so it was like a 'not knowing, not buying' kinda mentality Journe was not on my priority list.



Recently I had some time to revisit the Resonance and a chance to acquire one that has the discontinued brass movement, most importantly, the 38mm case size is perfect on my wrist! I read on and started to understand the beauty of this watch movement from this watchmaker. Fascinated by Resonance, which I usually would associate it to music created harmoniously for human being, I was pleasantly surprised to learnt this is applied to Journe's watch. The second hands in the second dials are beating and running in synchronisation. For almost a day after owning the watch, they're still beating, 'singing' to each other harmoniously. This is the main reason I was mesmerized The white gold designed dial showing dual time which can be set independently becomes an obvious plus point to a frequent traveller like me. Wow, how could I have missed this fabulous watch before? (ok, I didn't have enough dough to get all the watches I fancy at the same time, it's a cruel world out there!).



This article written by Felipe Jordão has all the technical details and a link to a video showing how the phenomena of Resonance is demonstrated by pumping 5W sine wave audio tone at certain frequency deforming the brim of the glass, which he termed 'jellification' before shattering it. Star Trek dude!

www.thepurists.net

The infamous Blue hands (sorry I couldn't quite capture the color essence here) are pretty, subtle and not always 'blue' until you turned the watch facing the right angle against the light. The slate grey dial is preferred over the Yellow Gold one (I hate to stress this and to wear a wear younger looking than my age), a Platinum, slim and slender case is so dressy under my sleeves. The short lugs make the watches wears comfortably on my wrist, a 40mm perhaps would be 'too large' for me.



The movement is pretty, instantly identifiable by the dual mass balances, rather big compared to my other watches.



The ruthenium plated brass compliments nicely with the platinum case which I prefer over the gold movement that is still in production today. Still it's unfair to compare it to my Datograph which incidentally impossible to take bad picture of its movement, however I can't say that of the Resonance. I needed to spend some effort in order to capture it 'decently', you agree?



Winding and setting the dual time using the crown at 12 is something one needs to get used to.



pulling out the crown at 4 synchronises the second hands! And they should stay synchronised or at least synchronises automatically. So far after 12 hours, they're still running like a pair of twins!



Any how, this watch is not new, many people have written wonderful articles about it, Harry Tan took many excellent pictures of it, brilliant. Mine is a personal review of my latest acquisition. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. It's a watch I'd keep for a while.

And here's the mandatory wrist shot, ooooh... sexy!



Have a nice weekend guys.

Mech. This message has been edited by Mech on 2009-06-13 19:37:23