Illustrious Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet is celebrating 140 years of existence, and is doing so in style with one of their most remarkable timepieces yet: the Royal Oak Concept RD#1.
The hashtag in this case is not the venerable brand’s attempt to reach out to the younger generation, but simply the indication that this is the first iteration in a potential line of amazing striking watches, the best, in fact, it has ever created. The development process started back in 2006 and signaled the fact that Audemars Piguet was ready to do things differently, after over a century of creating striking watches the traditional way. The manufacture partnered with the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne) and put together a team which also included craftsmen specializing in string instruments, an academic from the Geneva conservatory, and a sound engineer. The aim was to ‘standardize’ the repeating mechanism, defining some scientific characteristics for it in order to ensure the sounds would be similar in all watches that would be henceforth produced.
The minute repeater thus created boasts excellent sound quality and volume and is also comes, quite remarkably, in a water resistant case. This is impressive because usually minute repeaters aren’t water resistant, as sealing the case affects the sound quality. As one might expect, Audemars Piguet had to innovate a lot in order to make this watch a reality, and the fact that it has at least three patents pending proves this point thoroughly.
Moving on to the timepiece’s less groundbreaking features, the Royal Oak Concept RD#1 has a 44mm titanium case and is water resistant to 20 meters. The movement is the manual winding caliber 2874SS, with tourbillon and column wheel chronograph – as we’ve come to expect from Audemars Piguet, this is a multi-complication watch, so the inclusion of a tourbillion and chronograph isn’t at all a surprise.
[Luxury Insider]
