Post by timelessluxwatches on Oct 29, 2015 15:41:18 GMT -6
Grand Seiko SBGR097 Review
The SBGR097 is a model designed to honor Grand Seiko's 55th anniversary. That's an important occasion, so GS didn't hold back and gave this watch not only a unique dial, but new case and new movement as well. Read on to learn everything about this great watch.
The SBGR097 is a new (and fleeting) limited edition from Grand Seiko honoring the company's 55th anniversary. This time period saw the brand, and the company, go from an obscure Eastern manufacturer to an elite contender on the world stage and eventually become one of the most popular brands among watch collectors. The primary watch designed to commemorate that event is, unsurprisingly, very special.
The watch is, in its own unusual way, over the top, full of Grand Seiko design. This is most noticeable in the extremely subtle, and fine, repeating GS texture on the dial, but it isn't limited to it. The case has been increased to 42mm as well, a surprising move for a brand that has tended to resist the trend of larger watches. Despite the increase in diameter, the watch hasn't become any thicker. In fact, it's thinner than many mechanical GS models.
Possibly contributing to the slightly thinner case is the new 9S61 automatic. A member of the hugely successful 9S6X family of movements, it shares all of that line's features, like a MEMS escapement, SPRON hairspring and mainspring, 72 hour power reserve and extremely impressive accuracy. Well, it shares all but one of the 9S65's features-the date. The 9S61 is one of only two current-generation mechanical movements from the company to lack a date and is the only one that is also an automatic. This is great news because, while I like date complications quite a bit myself, Grand Seiko's ensemble of classic dress watches was crying out for more no-date options. 2015 will see that need met, not just by this limited edition, but by its brothers, the white-dialed SBGR099 and black-dialed SBGR101.
Of course, these are merely the highlights of what is likely to become one of the most collectible models in the brand's history. Read on to learn the full story of this remarkable watch.
The dial is simply phenomenal and represents some of GS' finest work yet. That's quite an accomplishment for a company that is celebrated for their dial work.
Before I address the texture that it will no doubt be best known for, I wanted to first take a look at the color. If you're a GS fan you probably already know that their dials are quite legendary for their dynamic character. That is to say that most GS dials appear very different from one environment to the next. While I've taken great pains to capture the blue character of the dial, as well as the texture, I want to be clear that the dial is most often like you see above. It's an extremely dark blue and no texture is visible unless you're looking for it. The dial can become a very vibrant, bright blue, and the texture very apparent, but only when the light strikes it just right. As Grand Seikos typically do, the SBGR097 flies under the radar most of the time.
The light does sometimes hit the watch just right, however, and what you get to enjoy is this brilliant blue hue and repeating pattern on the dial.
Get sufficiently close and you'll be able to make out a repeating GS motif. Some fans have not been pleased with this style choice, thinking it a bit ostentatious. I'm not among them, however, because in the real world, which does not resemble a photography studio in the least, this is incredibly subtle. Furthermore, this isn't even the only Grand Seiko with a repeating GS pattern on the dial (see the beautiful SBGR037, for instance). I love textured dials as a general rule and I am definitely into this one. Of course, if it's not for you, you should check out the sunburst dialed SBGR099 and SBGR101 instead.
You might not expect it, given that almost all photos of the SBGR097 try to highlight the texture, but it's actually an extremely smooth, polished dial from most angles. Here you can easily make out a crystal clear reflection of its hands.
The dauphine hands, excellent as always, stay true to the formula for dark dialed Grand Seikos. That is to say that, unlike their light-dialed counterparts, they are brushed on top which aids in legibility in most environments. The beveled edges are still perfectly polished, however. The hands are easily one of my favorite parts about a Grand Seiko.
The markers too are what you'd expect from GS and are somewhat similar to the hands in terms of polishing. They feature a very clean and deep linear brush stroke to the top facet with highly polished beveled edges that catch the light. Again, these tend to be fully polished on light dialed Grand Seikos. The only significant difference is that, lacking a date, it has a complete 3:00 marker which is sure to please fans of symmetry.
The fact that GS relies quite heavily on applied markers, and the markers and hands have a fairly complex geometry, gives the dial a surprising amount of depth. The GS and SEIKO emblems are applied as well. Because of the glossy nature of this dial, and many other Grand Seikos, at some angles it causes the markers to appear as if they're floating.
The lack of the date makes this a slightly more classic watch, owing to its simplicity. I'm mainly a fan of Grand Seiko dates, at least how they're aesthetically executed, with an applied frame and a well-match date ring. That said, more no date GSes make sense given the dressiness of the collection. I also like the side effects that come with that, namely that the watch seems to be slightly thinner and it's much easier to set.
Overall, although the SBGR097's dial has proven to be slightly divisive among fans, I think it's a tremendous success. I absolutely love it and I think it's the best looking Japanese watch released this year. I hope that its detractors will get a chance to see these in person (unfortunately improbable given the quantities of the watch) because it's so much subtler in real life. This is not a flashy watch, or dial, in the least.
The dial might be getting all the attention from fans, but the legacy of the SBGR097 is going to be this, the new 9S61 movement. The 9S61, as you might guess, hails from the 9S6X family of movements that began with the rare 9S67 but is most known for the 9S65, the automatic date version.
What distinguishes the 9S61 from the 9S65? Well, two things: it lacks a date and, I must assume, it is therefore slightly thinner (an assumption that appears to be substantiated by the actual thickness of the watch).
Astute Grand Seiko fans will be quick to point that the 9S6X family actually already had a no date version, the 9S64. But the 9S64 is unique in that it's a hand wound movement. I actually love the 9S64 and I wish Grand Seiko would use it much more often, but the 9S61 offers an excellent alternative for fans of automatics.
Having addressed the differences in the 9S61, let's get into what makes the 9S6X family so well loved in general.
I suppose we'll start with the writing. I've always loved writing like this on movements. In this case, it does have a couple of interesting facts. First we see it has 33 jewels, a high number by any standard, yet down 2 from the 9S65, owing to the lack of a date. The second fact is true of all modern Grand Seiko movements, that it's adjusted in all 6 positions. This is a rare feature, meaning that the effect of gravity has been adjusted for in each primary orientation of the watch. Most watches are unadjusted, but even chronometers are typically only adjusted for five positions. Some exceptions include Jaeger LeCoultre and Patek Philippe, as well as Nomos, but 6 position adjustment remains extremely rare. The result of this effort is that the rate of the watch changes relatively little between any two given orientations, ultimately making for a more stable movement.
As is the case on all mechanical watches, this is where the magic happens: the escapement. This is the functional unit of a watch, the part that makes a watch actually keep time. Think of the escapement as the brakes of a movement. It prevents the energy in the mainspring from leaving the watch all at once by basically letting off the brakes just for a moment and just for extremely regular intervals. The ticking that is characteristic of mechanical timekeeping is the sound of the escapement basically locking and unlocking, allowing the movement to advance a single position with each time. It's an oversimplification, but you get the idea.
The 9S family, like all modern Grand Seiko mechanicals, uses a smooth balance wheel. The smooth balance has become far and away the most popular design and today is nearly universal in mechanical watches. It's called a smooth balance because it is literally smooth. The competing design, which is today mainly the variable inertia balance (in the past you'd have wilder versions of variable inertia balances, like bimetallic split balances, as well) has screws or collets which are used for adjusting poise and timing. The smooth balance is permanently poised at the factory, usually by means of a laser to the underside of the balance and is almost always regulated. Many elite watch companies produce smooth balance watches, like most Vacheron Constantins, A. Lange & Sohnes, Glashutte Originals and some Jaeger LeCoultres. Nonetheless, the free sprung balance is probably the most popular design of the high-end, with Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Omega and Journe adopting that approach. Each design has their advantages and disadvantages, so let's take a closer look.
We're looking at the big feature of smooth balance designs, the regulator. Regulators make it very easy to change the rate of the watch. More adventurous watch collectors are known to even do this at home in a quest to get better accuracy. This works by increasing or decreasing the effective (but not actual) length of the hairspring. The disadvantage of this design is that the regulator has a disruptive influence on the hairspring, which can reduce stability, and it's also an additional component to be knocked around, leading to inaccuracy over extended periods of time (not days but months and years). Of course, when that occurs, it's a simple matter for a local watchmaker to regulate the movement and get it perfect again. Free sprung balances are ultimately simpler and more stable, but are relatively difficult to adjust. There is no right answer here, merely two competing designs with their various industry supporters. For what it's worth, regulators on Grand Seikos are nothing new, and Grand Seiko was able to enter these designs and be victorious in international chronometry competitions with them, so this is proof positive that the smooth balance isn't holding them back.
As I've said on many prior occasions, hairsprings are kind of the unsung heroes of watch movements. I would wager that the quality and design of the hairspring has a far greater impact on stability than free sprung versus regulated design yet it is not often discussed. Here we see a flat hairspring, which is far and away the most common design, even among ultra-high end watches. The primary competitor is 3 dimensional, the Breguet overcoil, which with the exception of Rolex (and Breguet, naturally), is hardly ever used anymore. What's more important is that this hairspring is made of a unique proprietary alloy with the notably unsexy name of "SPRON." This alloy apparently has properties that make it very suitable for this kind of work, thanks to unusually high strength, elasticity and corrosion resistance. A different formulation of SPRON is also used for the mainspring.
Here's the Diashock shock absorber. Seiko is one of the only companies that can say they design produce all of their own shocks, although Rolex is joining in lately with their own Paraflex. Seiko produces two versions of Diashock, the "flower" design that you see on the high-end like Grand Seiko and Credor, and the plainer looking Diashock you'd find on something like a 7S26, which I call the "bat" design.
Finally, we get to the escapement itself, or at least the escape wheel since we can't really see the pallet fork. These are the two most fundamental units of the escapement and some of the most radical design choices in a Grand Seiko. Here we see the escape wheel, but we also see the cutouts, making this one of the only mass produced skeletonized escape wheels in the business. This skeletonization also carries over to the pallet fork. This reduces unnecessary mass, leading to greater efficiency, with only a nominal decrease in strength. What human eyes cannot see, however, is the MEMS process that is used to manufacture these components with nearly molecular level precision.
Today Grand Seiko mechanical movements come from one of two families, the 9S6X, like this one, and the 9S8X, like the SBGH001 for instance. There are several differences between them, but there are only two that are really important to remember. The 9S6 models, including this 9S61, beat at 28,800 BPH, sort of the modern standard frequency. The 9S8 family is the "Hi-Beat" line which beats at 36,000 BPH. Historically, however, both of these movements would have been classified as Hi-Beats by Seiko, and some classic Grand Seiko models that beat at 28.8k carried the Hi-Beat nomenclature. The higher beat rate is generally the more desired, but it's not nearly as one sided as it might first appear. While the 9S85 has an excellent 55 hour power reserve (about 15 more than the average), the 9S65 (and this 9S61) has an extremely impressive 72 hour power reserve. Furthermore, there is no 9S81, at least not yet, so those looking for a no date automatic will be sticking to the 9S61.
The movement is adorned with the standard, but beautiful, rotor. It's not quite as pretty as the "SPECIAL" rotors, which are not used on the 9S6X movements generally speaking, but it still looks terrific. Automatic winding is handled by a bidirectional system of the traditional Swiss variety. These days only the spring drive movements, the 9R families, have the traditional Japanese approach, the "magic lever." I don't know why Seiko switched to this system for the 9S6X and 9S8X movements, particularly when they didn't for the 9R movements. It's certainly a proven system, very similar to the one used by Rolex, Omega and ETA, but I've always preferred the magic lever. It's a simpler, more elegant solution.
I've written a lot about the bearings various manufacturers use, namely the industry shift to using ball bearings instead of sleeve bearings, but Grand Seiko has been quietly using ball bearings for years. This should contribute to the wear resistance of the mechanism.
It's interesting that Grand Seiko, being a relatively small player in the luxury watch market, has had such a massive influence. The 72 hour power reserve that Grand Seiko internally standardized on their spring drives and 9S6X movements is now an emerging industry standard. Next-generation Rolex and Tudor movements, for instance, have switched to a three day power reserve. Rolex in particular seems to be a fan of Grand Seiko movements, not only in terms of the power reserve, but also in their adoption of a MEMS escapement and skeletonized escape wheel. Grand Seiko can't claim to have invented these things, they're simply the first company to mass produce them in a way real people can afford, but I have to wonder if GS has encouraged other companies to up their game.
All in all, the 9S61 is not a radical departure from Grand Seiko watchmaking. It's a subtle addition to an existing family of movements, but it's a needed one. I have always thought that Grand Seiko designs would work very well in a no date variety and have really hoped they'd release more 9S64 models to meet that need. With the introduction of the 9S61, however, we're going to have a lot more options. This year we have three, two of which are production watches, but I'm sure that this will be more filled out going into the future.
The case also receives quite an update, being both slightly larger at 42mm and slightly thinner (than most GSes, anyway) at 13.1mm.
The ruler shot seems to support Grand Seiko's measurements. It's a little larger than I typically like and the dial somewhat more spacious, lacking the date and Hi-Beat text that some models have, making it look a little bigger than it really is off the wrist. On the wrist, it wore great and didn't seem too large at all.
The polishing on this case is a bit interesting, at least for a Grand Seiko. Grand Seiko typically uses alternating brushed and polished surfaces in the case but here we see two connected fully polished facets.
The signed crown screws down for 100 meters of water resistance, but frankly I'd have preferred a non-screw down crown. I don't expect anyone to be taking this watch for a swim and I'd rather have the convenience for setting and winding the watch. Still, it's a personal preference and some people prefer the security of the screw in crown no matter what.
At 13.1mm, it's slightly thinner than most of its 9S65 counterparts, but not as thin as it could be. The SBGR051, sort of the staple of 9S65 watches, is 13.3mm thick, but conversely, the SBGR095 is actually thinner at 12.9mm. I suspect that the reason they didn't make it as thin as possible is so they could fit all of the 9S6X movements in it with no modification down the road.
The curved lugs make this a really comfortable watch to wear. I also appreciate that the lugs are drilled.
I really like the new case, both stylistically and in terms of size. I see no reason why you couldn't put any 9S6X automatic movement in it, so we can probably look forward to seeing models with date and perhaps GMT in this size next year. The SBGH001's case remains my favorite, both in size and design, but many people really want a larger, yet dressy, Grand Seiko, so this is a nice addition to the mechanical line. Those who don't mind something sportier can always go for the even larger SBGC001 or SBGA029.
With a dynamic dial like you find on a Grand Seiko you really ought to see it in person. Failing that, however, our videos can give you a good idea of how they appear in motion. Check it out here.
The SBGR097 is a fantastic piece that makes a stand in pretty much every possible way a watch can, the dial, movement and case. It's a shame it's limited to 500 pieces. I understand why this can't really be a full production watch, mainly due to that highly unique dial, but it's really our loss.
The dial is perhaps the greatest aspect of the SBGR097, which is a bit unfortunate because it's the only part that will have no long lasting legacy. I adore the repeating GS motif, but what I can't really impress upon the readers is how subtle it is. The dial is a very dark blue at most angles with no visible texture at all.
The GS texture is something you are going to have to look for, to center the watch in just the right light, at just the right angle. That's how it should be with a Grand Seiko. You don't buy a GS to be flamboyant and such an over the top branded dial would have been just that. Instead, we have something that's far more secretive than my studio-created photos demonstrate. While the dial itself is limited to just 500 pieces, the rest of the watch isn't. The case and movement survive into two full production models, the SBGR099 and SBGR101.
The new movement, the 9S61, is probably going to have the greatest long term impact on the brand. Next year, and for probably 5 or so more years afterwards, we'll be seeing a gradually increasing number of Grand Seikos that lack a date, especially since GS itself doesn't seem to be that interested in using their own no-date hand wound 9S64 calibre. The 9S61 itself is a very exciting movement, but that's in virtue of it being part of the 9S6X family, a collection of movements that ranks among the finest in the world, not because it lacks a date. I'm very happy to see it myself, and while I tend to hover around the 36000 BPH models for what I personally wear, I would probably be inclined to buy my next GS with no date, so this opens up great options for the future. When the SBGR097 is gone, I think I could find myself very happy with the SBGR099, kind of the 9S6X family equivalent to the SBGH001 Hi-Beat.
The last point I'd like to make on the 9S61 is that it completes the 9S6X family, at least if we use the gone but not forgotten 9S5X family as an exemplar. Indeed, the 9S6X family is now larger than the 9S5X since it featured the rare 9S67 with a power reserve and date for which the 9S5X had no direct analog. What this implies to me is that the 9S6X family is now concluded. Thus, development will probably now shift to new varieties of the 9S8X family over the next several years. Of course, there's always the chance that Grand Seiko will do something really wild and add more complications to this group of movements, but there is no historical precedent for it, so I consider it unlikely.
The case, like the movement, has long lasting ramifications for Grand Seiko. The actual design of the case is not particularly remarkable, at least within the context of similar Grand Seiko watches, but the increased size is going to open up a lot of possibilities for those who like slightly larger watches, and not just for the SBGR097, SBGR099 and SBGR101. I have little doubt that Grand Seiko will utilize this case for future models, perhaps with a date or GMT complication. You might not particularly like the 42mm size, although I'm not personally bothered by it, but all it really means for GS fans is that there are more options, and that's rarely a bad thing.
When I first saw the SBGR097 prototype, even next to all of the other great new Grand Seiko models, I knew pretty quickly that this was my favorite. Spending some time with the watch, I haven't changed my mind. This is the most important Grand Seiko of 2015, with a unique dial, new case and new movement. It's also executed very well, from a design standpoint as it's a terrific looking, terrific performing watch.
