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amanico
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JLC SIHH 2011: The Duometre à Quantième Lunaire in white gold.

The Duometre in one of the most exciting and interesting offer, from " La Grande Maison ".

First introduced in 2007, the Duometre revisited the Chronograph, and opted for a Foudroyante.

It came in Yellow Gold, Rose Gold and Platinum.

In 2009, another fantastic creation from JLC: The Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie, which, as its name doesn't suggest it, is another Duometre, dedicated to the strking complications.

In 2010, JLC came to the SIHH with a more " intellectual " offer, the Duometre à Quantieme Lunaire.

Shortly, as I prepared a dedicated topic to this watch, the Duometre à Q.L is not an homage to the moonphase, as we could think, but to the precision:

One barrel is used to feed the time functions ( hour, minute, second, date, and moonphase ), the other is here to feed the escapement, as to avoid any pollution from the time functions.

It was first introduced in rose gold and yellow gold, but surprisingly, not in white metal ( white gold or platinum, as the Duometre will never see anything else than a precious metal, for its case ).

So, this year, the question wasn't to know if there will be a white metal Duometre, but WHICH precious metal will be used, and what dial will be chosen.

Here is a picture of the rose gold version:



And there, the yellow gold:



If there was some suspens on the new Duometre à Q.L to come, it is because, last year, JLC released a short batch of White Gold Duometres à Chronographe, with a black dial.

So, there were chances that if JLC opted for the white gold, we'd have the black dial, and if platinum was chose, we'd get the beautiful grained dial, seen on the rose gold or platinum versions...

The White Gold Duometre à Chronograph, released in 2010:



The answer came: White Gold, black dial:



What I observed is that JLC, but not only, took some distances with Platinum, as only one watch came in this metal, in the whole collection: The Master Grande Tradition Tourbillon, in favor of the white gold.

Sign of the ( tough ) Times, premium for the platinum, both reasons?

Anyway, the choice of the black dial is excellent, in my opinion.

It gives a lot of personality and strenght to the Duometre, without taking too much of its elegance.

Eye catching, even for a fan of the grained dial like me.



( Please note that the blue reflections are due to the Anti Reflect Coating, the dial is indeed deep black ).

The black dial goes very well with the blue disc of the moonphase, too.

And let's not forget that the Duometre is also and ALWAYS a superb movement, and an interesting concept:



I postponed the publication of this post because I was waiting for some technical informations.

- First, I wanted to know what was this flange located on the left of the wheel, just above, which goes from 9 to 11 o'clock.

I was told that it was used for resetting the second hands to zero.

- The average amplitude on the Quantième Lunaire is 240, and the Master 1 000 Hours Tolerance, here, on the Duomètre à Q.L is from -2 to 6 seconds per day, which is significantly less than the COSC, and I was told that it was a prudent estimate, from JLC.

- Does the Dual Wind conception authorize a constant or at least regular / linear torque curve in addition to the fact that the work of the balance wheel is not disturbed by the time function ( such as the date, for example )?

The answer is NO. Such an improvement is offered by an escapement " à force constante ", which is not the case with the Quantième Lunaire.

BUT, to improve the linearity of the torque curve, JLC decided to reduce the power reserve of the Duometre from 55 hours, which is the initial autonomy, to 50 hours.

To be complete, the Duomètre à Quantieme Lunaire in White Gold is priced at 32 000 Euros, and limited to 200 pieces.

Best,

Nicolas. This message has been edited by amanico on 2011-04-25 00:05:05 This message has been edited by amanico on 2011-04-28 10:23:00