Chapter 2Complications

We have spent over 137 years mastering the conception, construction and production of complications. As such, our entire philosophy revolves around these rare, precious and consistently unique creations. Here you'll discover how our mastery of complications has become the ultimate display of our Savoir-Faire.

Theme 3

Chiming

It takes ingenuity and precision to strike the perfect chord. The watchmaker will spend as long as required to ensure that the cadence of the strike is neither too fast nor too slow, and exactly equal on both hammers.

Gongs are tuned in order to play the clearest possible note and multiple pitches are individually perfected. These fine-tuning operations involved in the crafting of repeater watches mean that each timepiece is entirely unique and cannot be replicated.

An Audemars Piguet First

1892 Audemars Piguet presents the first wristwatch equipped with a minute repeater function.

Chiming Complications

Minute Repeater

The first great specialty of watchmakers in the Joux Valley was the production of watches that chimed, telling the time in music. Jules Audemar's father and grandfather made these mechanisms. Therefore it was natural that Audemars Piguet devoted much of its output to such watches right from the start, perfecting a complication that often has more than 400 components.

This complication indicates the hours by a series of strikes on the low-pitched gong, quarter hours by striking the low/high-pitched gong and additional minutes by striking the high-pitched gong.

See the Minute Repeater in Calibre 2885

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Facts

2
The number of gongs and hammers tuned to perfection by ear.
18
The century in which the repeater was invented, allowing people to hear their watch after sundown.
400
Number of components within this complication.

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