A. Lange & Söhne

Gary G
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Wearing impressions on the Double Split, with new photos

Greetings to all!  Seems that there is DS Fever in the air recently -- and I am certainly a victim myself.  For those who are interested, here are my impressions after several weeks of ownership and wearing, in my usual "love -- not sure -- don't love" format.

 What I love about this watch:

1. That monumental movement!  No surprise there, I suppose.  Adding more to the 1815/Dato style underlying structure seems like using the Mona Lisa as the background for a collage, but I'll take it!  Some folks don't like that ALS takes a "vertical" approach to building these movements, but I'm fine with it -- and it's wonderful fun seeing all of those levers and wheels click when you push the various buttons.  Like a city under glass, and the movement finishing is both divine and varied:

2.  Let's start with the functional aspects: the Double Split mechanism that made this piece famous: split seconds and split minutes, extending the range of lap and event timing functionality substantially

3. Great pusher feel.  Friends of mine who are experts on this rave about the pusher feel on this watch, and to me the actuation is even better than on my Dato, which is really saying something

4. Instantaneous chrono minutes jumping at the top of the minute, for both the main and rattrapante chrono minutes hands.  A great feature, and on this watch Lange does it not once, but twice

5. Flyback function, including the feature that allows you to hold down the flyback button, keeping the timer stopped until the moment at which you choose to re-release the button and re-start the chrono.  Also, if the rattrapante hands are stopped, the flyback function only operates the main chrono hands

6. "Fly-past" action on the rattrapante hands -- if you watch carefully, you can see them zap past the main hands before swinging back and locking into place.  Lots of fun to watch, and likely reduces wear and tear on the movement

7.  Incredibly precise returns on all hands -- whether it's the reunification of the rattrrapante hands to the main hands, or the snapping of the hands back to zero, done perfectly with no dramas

8. Smooth manual winding -- not quite as effortless as on the Dato, but quite nice nonetheless, helped by the meaty winding crown

9. Dial layout -- lots to like here, starting with the classic bi-compax arrangement of the major subdials:

10. Symmetrical sub-dial arrangement, with the diamond-shaped cutouts on the ends of the chrono seconds hands swinging cleanly over the axes of the running seconds, chrono minutes, and power reserve hands

11. The "hidden" main chrono hands that appear when the rattrapante is in play are an attractive matching gold

12. Dial appearance is pleasingly "busy" -- to me, a hallmark of the Lange look.  I'm not that much a fan of some of the more recent dial looks from Lange -- this one, with the tachymetre and 5-minute scripts, looks great to me

13. The applieds -- Romans and batons.  To quote my friend tahoeblue: there is no instance in which applied Romans don't look great!

14. Hand shapes (with one reservation, to come later) -- very classic

15. Lume, both on the hands and on dots at 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, and 55 minutes.  It's not the world's brightest lume (much dimmer, for instance, than that on my Dato) but I do like having lume on a chrono.  I also like the way that ALS integrates the lume lots into the ends of the applied batons in a way that isn't obvious to the eye

16. And, of course, this watch has the iconic Lange black/silver chrono dial look.  I'm cheating here to mention something that "people in general" love rather than something that I love personally, but it is kind of cool to have a watch with this look:

17.  Power reserve -- very useful to have (see later for some reservations on this)

18. Massive (and I do mean massive) platinum case

19.  Brushed sideband on the case.  On my RG Dato, I like that the sideband is polished -- but on a PT case, particularly of this size, I think that the brushed sideband adds a bit of restraint and is in keeping with the overall character of the watch

20. Other pleasing structural elements of the case: the laser etched words and numerals in relief on the caseback; the solid pusher shapes; the solid (and very functional) curved lugs

21. OK, now here's the surprising point: it is very comfortable to wear!  I can hear you now: "but isn't it really heavy?  Doesn't it sit high on the wrist?"  All that I can say is that it feels great and sits really well on my relatively small, but flat-topped wrist.  It helps a lot, I think that I'm right on one of the holes in the strap, so that the watch is neither too loose nor too tight as it sits.  I'm telling you: this thing feels great on -- go figure

22. Speaking of the strap, I like it as well -- the standard Lange strap is well made, supple, and has that nice rounded end that feeds nicely through the buckle and keepers

23. The tang buckle.  I'm a deployant guy, but I do like this tang -- it is made so that it doesn't crimp/deform the strap too much, it's easy to use, is made of PT rather than WG as on some other brands, and with the tang buckle it's oh-so-easy to get a great view of that movement

24. This model is now discontinued!  So no worries about huge quantities flooding the market (not that there are that many of this piece in the market to begin with)

25.  Last (and maybe least) -- it makes my RG Dato look elegant (almost dainty) by comparison:

So -- a lot to like!  Let's move on to the next category: Things I'm not sure I like so much:

1. The main chrono hands (seconds and minutes) are different colors.  I know that the backgrounds are different (black vs. silver), and that this is a Lange thing (cf. the chrono hands on the Dato, also different in color from each other)

2. The size of the power reserve subdial and hand.  In pictures, the subdial and hand really look undersized -- the good news is that in the metal, the effect is more pleasing -- but still not ideal for me

3. Legibility of the main hour/minute hands.  At times, it can be difficult to pick them out against the background; and given that the main goal is to read the time, this can be an issue!  As on some other watches, this depends a lot on the angle of incident light on the dial

4. Brightness of the lume (see above)

5. The depth of the "canyon" in which the movement sits, and its thick walls.  I know that it's a tall movement, but especially with the thick case surround in the back, it seems to be sitting quite far back from view.  By contrast, the Dato movement seems almost to burst from the back of the case

6.  At least on my example, the chrono hand jumps pretty significantly upon initiation.  I know that this isn't a Piguet 1185 with its vertical clutch, but perhaps a movement adjustment will be in order at the next service

7.  Yeah, OK, the watch sits very high on the wrist (although the lugs help a lot).  It still feels great to wear, though!

Now here are the bits I don't love about this watch:

1.  The yellowish subdials -- I would prefer that they be more of a pure silver in appearance

2. The 3 Hz movement -- for me, a chrono should ideally be one-fifth (like the Dato) or one-tenth (El Primero) second, or in a pinch one-eighth -- but one-sixth seems unnatural.  It does result in a smoother-looking progression of the chrono seconds hand than on the Dato, but the idea of one-sixth really isn't to my taste.  As a related point, I prefer the larger balance wheel on the Dato as well

3. The blue AR on the crystal.  When you own a black-dialed watch, you want to see black, not blue or some chromatic aberration! 

Finally, a few things that would be on my wish list in the ideal world:

1. Make this watch with a big date instead of the power reserve -- a DS Dato would be stunning!

2. Too bad they only made 5 of the Sincere version of this watch with the all-black dial -- I would far prefer that look, I think

3. Would be great to have both deployant and tang buckles as standard with this watch

If you are still with me, thanks for reading this far!  Obviously all opinions put forward are solely those of the author -- happy to hear differing views.

All the best,

Gary G