Piaget

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Piaget Emperador Coussin Ultra-Thin Minute Repeater - JAPAN

Piaget held a press presentation for the new Altiplano Ultra-Thin models and the first Minute Repeater which has the thinnest movement and case.  They brought TWO working samples of the new minute repeater and we could handle and hear the sound - please look forward the video (apologies for the surrounding chattering noise) as you read on.


1. New Altiplano models:
They brought in three models:

Altiplano Skeleton Ultra-Thin








1200S Movement




38mm case size is quite nice, and if I may add, this PG version is also very, very nice in terms of color coordination.













Altiplano Automatic Date & Altiplano Automatic (last year's novelty)



Automatic Date: 40mm case size.  As FrX reported: good proportion.  The date at 9h is distinctive and well balanced with the 4h small second sub dial.












New 1205P




Altiplano: 43mm case size - looks a bit too big for my wrist, helped by the thin bezel.
















1208P movement.








On my wrist (6.45"), the lug tips hang well over the wrist.




2. Presentation - Minute Repeater development

Mr. Franck Touzeau, Watch Marketing Director who flew from the Head Office, led the presentation.








Piaget's definition of "Five Milestones of watchmaking" - (from left to right) Tourbillon, Chronograph, Perpetual Calendar, Minute Repeater, and Grande Sonnerie, and with the new Minute Repeater, they have now achieved four out of five.




The case is just 9.4mm thick - the world's thinnest automatic minute repeater
The movement is 4.8mm height - also the world's thinnest automatic minute repeater





Now, presentation by Mr. Vasco Belo, who is from the the Movement Division.




Case size is 48mm - maybe a bit too big, but with this technology packed inside, it is understandable and may be acceptable.  Of course, my small wrist wish it were tad smaller.  The extra space in the round case with rectangular-ish movement may work as "the room between the sound board and lid" of the piano to amplify and give reverberation.




How minute repeater works:
Four key mechanism of the minute repeater watch: Showing the time, Recognizing the time, Control the repeater function, and bang with the hammer.




These three cams work to "read" and "recognize" the time (hour, quarter, and minute) for banging the hammer to let you know the time which must be exactly the same as the time shown by the hands on the dial.




Now, the sound loudness and quality:

Sound loudness: While people's ears can hear or tolerate (theoretically) from 0 to 140db.  The loudness is set at 64db which is slightly below the conversation loudness level.  Comfortable level in terms of the loudness.




The sound frequency.....  They did numerous experiments and determined the sound frequency as well as the sound attenuation time length....




Another impressive point about this minute repeater - water resistant.