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In this insightful review, m2 shares his journey to acquiring a highly personalized Armin Strom Mirrored Force Resonance. His detailed account highlights the brand's evolution in design and technical refinement, offering a unique perspective on the customization process for a truly independent horological creation. This piece is particularly valuable for collectors considering a bespoke experience with a high-complication timepiece.
For years, I have loved the idea of a watch with a resonance function…but nothing out there was quite right.
Then I stumbled upon the original Armin Strom Resonance, but couldn’t find owner reviews on them, and didn’t love the large case lip. The original resonance design from Armin Strom lacked refinement, it looked very v1.
A little later Armin Strom released the Mirrored Force Resonance…
This watch featured an upgraded movement, a case design I liked, and it’s ultimately what I ended up ordering. Overall it felt like the brand’s design had matured a lot into something more refined. With design issues solved, I had no more excuses; the new model put it into the must own category instead of the “maybe if I can find one cheap”.
I’m pretty patient and figured a used one would pop up, but one never did… I guess people really like them. Even from the time I put my order in last year, I haven’t seen one pop up for sale.
I ended up reaching out to Topper Jewelers (thx Jay!) and convinced my friend Mike to order one too at the same time! So he has a bit of a “twin” to this watch. I am a total sucker for customization, so I went back and forth with Jay at Topper and Claude from Armin Strom until we settled on this design.
It’s a piece unique Mirrored Force Resonance with a rose gold frosted movement, off white dial, and heat blued hands. I wanted rose gold and off white to warm up the relatively industrial design. I think it worked well. Very happy with the end result aesthetically, as I feel it fixes the industrial aesthetic of the stock version.
For me this watch is the perfect combination of a few key factors that are important to me in a watch; design, craftsmanship, and engineering.
Some thoughts around various aspects of the watch:
The movement. The Armin Strom resonance movement is independently verified to work as a true resonance mechanism by a Swiss scientific agency, and incredibly thin. The watch is only 11.55mm thick! It’s incredible to me that a relatively small company could engineer something like this, but it makes more sense when you learn that one of the current founders used to work for a brand that developed hyper complicated movements for other brands. Even better is the architecture of the movement. There are many open worked watches floating around, but few do a good job of ensuring the movement is laid out in an aesthetically pleasing way. Watching the dial balances in action is super fun. As a fun little bonus, the back says piece unique! I didn’t realize they would do that. This movement also features 80 hours of power reserve which is handy as I rotate through quite a few watches during the week.
The people. No dumb games and being able to work directly with one of the brands cofounders on a bespoke piece was a lot of fun. I’ve had bad experiences dealing with big brands that permanently ruined the brand for me, so this is a welcome change.
This is a very well finished watch for something in its price range with the complication featured. Armin Strom offers incredible value here in my opinion relative to competitors. I took some macro pics with my iPhone to try and show what I mean.
Examples of the finishing:
-The dial features a grenage finish in the center area which looks like a matte pearlescent thing? Not sure how to explain it. It’s very clear in videos. When you zoom in with a macro lens, it just looks matte. Cool effect that I haven’t seen on another watch yet. The outer ring of the dial has a pattern as well which isn’t overly visible unless you look carefully, and the printed is beautifully executed. Very very clean! Finally, the indices on the dial are very well polished.
-Anglage throughout the watch is thicc and clean. On the seconds hands, the bridge holding them has a good example of this, as does the back of the watch, which features several internal angles, and the signature 60 degree Armin Strom anglage. The frosting on the bridges is also very very nice!
-Extensive black polishing. You can get a good idea of this by looking at some of the whole watch pics attached. The click is a nice example of this.
-Plenty of graining/brushing like on the sides of the balance wheel bridges, dial side components, and the back of the watch.
The case is more interesting that it appears in pics. I was a little worried it would be too boring and sterile like Lange, but it’s has a very refined and aggressive feel to it. I’m very pleased as this was the one spot I thought would not be over the top happy with. I tried to capture the beauty of the case in my pictures but I don’t think I did a very good job!
The hands…I was 50/50 on these before getting the watch. Claude strongly suggested I stick to them and he was right. These are absolutely beautiful and go from black to purple and blue depending on the lighting.
Now, as far as things I wish I had changed design wise and various nitpicks…
1. Coarser frosting. Think Lang & Heyne. This looks good, but with their style of frosting it would be icing on a very delicious cake. Not to say I dislike the frosting as is, just that it could be even better by making it coarser.
2. No dial numerals, polished indices only. I don’t hate the two typefaces on this watch, but I do think the less typefaces used the better. This is very picky lol
3. I’m not a big fan of the stock strap. It’s not padded, but imo should have some padding, and the keeper is quite loose. Nothing wrong with it but after experiencing a terrycrafted strap, everything feels bad. It’s kind of like when you go to a very nice restaurant, order coffee…and get something very burnt 
Overall, I’m very happy with this watch. I love the design, engineering/complication, high quality craftsmanship and customer service. I can see myself ordering another watch from Armin Strom further down the line.
I used an iPhone for pictures with a bit of editing in Lightroom to remove noise.
I hope this lengthy review helps others make a decision. Usually I wouldn’t write something this long but I felt like since there are basically no owner reviews floating around I’d assist a little
You're too hard on yourself with your nitpicks Congratulations! M4
Excellent pictures as well. Thanks for the detailed write-up. Much enjoyment, cheers, Filip
The history of the development of the movement is an interesting as the watch. Serge and Claude have created a unique movement. Over time they have refined the movement for sure but even the original model is fascinating, a pleasure to wear and a joy to behold. Following the DNA of Armin Strom, the man, they have emphasized skeletonizing and finishing. Enjoy a special piece.
Armin Strom has done a great job continuing to refine their design into something really beautiful, it's amazing to see this piece and realize how far they've come since the original launch pieces with the big chinned case. It's also great to hear they were open to customization and were good to work with, with the recent indy hype emphasizing craft and low production the willingness and ability to personalize at reasonable expense is a great proof of their authenticity and real capabilities. Lo
Their team did a good job of taking the core idea and suggesting further improvements as well. Like blueing 2/3 of the seconds hands, etc.
Seeing the mode evolve over the years has been interesting. The new GMT dual time is great too, but I like the layout of this movement more.
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