Jaeger-LeCoultre

Dje
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Fantastic surprise,

Nicolas my friend,

This is a fantastic surprise you bring us here. I can't wait to see it in eight days.

What can I say? I love the watch.

Like many wrote I'd love to see the calibre, although I suppose case and calibres in such a conception are created one for the other, and the calibre alone will certainly look very different from what we're used to see in minute repeating watches. JLC has long given up the historical design of minute repeater calibres. Their way is unique and to be innovative is they way.

Innovation in minute repeaters is a true treat. Many brands, among those and often on top of them JLC, have shown so much on the tourbillon field in the last decade, that I'm glad to see them look more on the repeater side now.

I so far and on pictures love the dial design. Why do I love the tourbillon and the apertures above the rotor? I love clean dials, and find this one clean enough. I love simple watches and I find this one simple looking enough. But I truly dislike large and empty dials. This watch at 41mm, without the tourbillon and the aprrtures would have been an empty dial and I would not have liked it I think. Of course that's a personal taste. I love empty dials at 35mm, not at 41mm. That's for me a question of proportions.

As it is the dial is perfectly balanced by its "decorations" if I may call such a tourbillon a decoration. Then the tourbillon in itself is another innovation. And without a top cage, as it is twice flying, it wll be also far less disruptive than a classic tourbillon, far less expressive. I've already noticed in the Montblanc Exo that such a tourbillon doesn't look like a tourbillon, but more like an open dial on a balance. So the dial will be alive with a beating heart, what I love, but will not look like a revolving machine. The tourbillon sight should not spice too much the dial, just make it live.

Of course the tourbillon was certainly not added to decorate the dial. It is possibly here because they could do it, they wanted to do it, and because it is the Hybris Mechanica signature to do it, to go beyond, to innovate, to stand above. You don't build the USS Entreprise just to visit the moon.

In terms of calibre construction, I guess that the rotor and the gongs are on the same layer. I imagine the rotor revolving inside the peripherical gongs, in order to minimize height, and maximize the diameter of the gongs. Large size gongs, themselves welded to the sapphire glass, plus trebuchet hammers, all that with the last 20 years experience of JLC in minute repeaters here fully accomplished, I'm expecting an excellently sounding minute repeater. Clearly the main thing to check in eight days.

Maybe the apertures on dial help a best sound, maybe they also optimize the rotation of the gong, allowing air to circulate more easily inside. We will have to ask.

I can't wait to see the lever device either. A hidden lever is quite a nice improvement to provide a fantastic toy. This hidden lever certainly needs a lot of room inside and pushes me even furthermore in the idea of having the gongs on top of the rotor level. I can imagine them discussing about the project and finding ways to conceive and pack all that in such a limited volume. Kudos to them.

Can I add that I love the case profile too. It seems very elegant and I will pleasingly put it on the wrist to enjoy that by myself.

Overall I'm very happy to see such a masterpiece in a somewhat discreet, very elegant, and clearly understated attire. That's for me the sign of true horology, in the historical tradition of "slimmer is better". It's somewhat easy to stand out by spicying too much, it's another story to reveal the true flavour of fine horology.
And it's certainly not a simple consequence, but obviously a clear objective.

I'm thrilled.

Best

Dje