Post by timelessluxwatches on Oct 15, 2016 10:27:54 GMT -6
Zenith Chronomaster Grande Date Review
The Chronomaster Grande Date is the most complex Chronomaster model and one of the most complex production watches that Zenith currently makes. It wears this complexity on its sleeve in a uniquely avant garde, Zenith kind of way, featuring arguably the best open heart design in the industry.
It's no stretch to say that the Chronomaster Grande Date is one of my favorite Zeniths of all time. Indeed, I'd actually say it's one of my favorite watches of all time. Few watches better showcase Zenith's absolutely crazy dial layout and total irreverence for conventional design as well as this one does.
Most brands wouldn't even attempt a watch this complex in a mass produced model, but if they did, they'd be aiming for some sort of legibility-enhancing symmetrical layout. And that's fine. You should take a good look at those watches. But when you've been collecting watches as long as I have, you learn to appreciate the brands that can throw the rule book out and still produce a good looking watch.
The source of this complexity is, as you might expect, its complications. In just this one watch, you get a chronograph, a big date, a moon phase and a day/night complication. Apparently, there wasn't enough going on for Zenith, so we have a massive open heart thrown in for good measure.
Open hearts are somewhat seen as passé these days, but I never stopped loving them. Whether you share that feeling, Zenith's open hearts are in a league of their own. They're much, much larger than other open hearts, revealing the entire escapement in beautiful iridescent silicon. They're also quite well decorated and skeletonized. If you turn the mechanical watch you're wearing right now over, and look at the balance wheel, unless you happen to be wearing a skeleton, you'll notice you'll just peer into a plate behind it. Zenith has removed that plate and added some nice perlage to the bridges.
The big date complication is one of my favorites. The way they work is just so interesting to me. While they do make the date much easier to read, the reason Zenith used a big date here was actually more out of necessity than anything. Big dates can get away with using two much smaller date rings as opposed to a conventional date's giant ring. That design side effect comes in really handy when you don't want the date ring to get in the way of an open heart. They've gotten around the limitations of the open heart in other ways before as well, including a gorgeous retrograde date limited edition.
Of course, being an El Primero, it has a chronograph. To make space for all of the other complications, however, we only have a single subdial dedicated to it, but that's enough for the vast majority of tasks. I also like that the chronograph hands are color-coded blue.
But by far the most interesting aspect of this watch is its moon phase complication. It is, as you can see, quite beautiful, but it has a rather unusual secret.
It's also the day/night complication. It's a very elegant way of combining these two related functions and it's one of the only watches in the world that does this.
The lume on the Chronomaster is pretty good, certainly enough to be useful, but it doesn't really stand out from the competition here.
At 45mm, it's a bit large for my tastes, but you can imagine how crammed together these complications would look with less space to work with. It's not especially thin either at 15.6mm, but adding tons of complications will inevitably result in a thick movement, and therefore watch.
Interestingly, we can guess how much of that movement is dedicated to complications by comparing it with the Synopsis, the only El Primero with no complications (even the Espada had a date). The Synopsis' movement is about 5.6mm thick whereas the movement in this Chronomaster is about 9mm, and most, if not all, of that difference can be attributed to the chronograph, big date, day/night and moon phase complications.
Being a Zenith chronograph, the Chronomaster Grande Date is, of course, powered by an El Primero movement, the rather beautiful 4047 variation to be specific.
This is the most complex movement you can get in a Chronomaster, with other models, like the Power Reserve, dropping complications.
Like many other Zeniths today, particularly of the open dial variety, it's equipped with a next-generation silicon escapement. These are not only beautiful, they're lighter and need less lubrication than their metallic counterparts. The three-pointed hand also functions as a seconds subdial.
Another interesting thing about this particular El Primero is that it's chronometer certified. Zenith is somewhat weird when it comes to COSC certification because they keep it on the down low. There's no mention on the front of the watch, nor on the watch's webpage. If you were buying this, you'd only discover it when you looked at the rotor. This certification is generally present on 2016 and future Chronomaster models. I spoke with Zenith about why they don't make a big deal out of the COSC certification, and they told me that their internal requirements are so much tighter that the chronometer label doesn't hold a lot of value to them, but they certify it as a bit of a value-add on their top-of-the-line Chronomasters.
When it comes to my personal preferences in watch design, I really only have two modes: extremely clean and simple, hence my Grand Seiko and Nomos affection, or crazy avant garde complex, which is probably best represented by my love for Breguet and Zenith, as well as the old Seiko Anantas. It's pretty easy to see where the Chronomaster Grande Date falls on that scale.
The Chronomaster Grande Date is one of very few pieces that could seriously be described as haute horology near the $10k USD mark. It actually represents a tremendous value at this price point, combining a semi-skeletonized dial with no less than four complications, two of which are implemented in a very novel way (the moon phase/day/night subdial).
I expect there will be a lot of people who dislike this watch. There's nothing wrong with a love for symmetry or simplicity in watch design and this model just isn't designed for those collectors. If you do like it, the question you really need to ask yourself is whether you prefer it to the other Chronomasters. This is the largest and thickest of the bunch, so if you're looking for something smaller, the Chronomaster Power Reserve or the simple Chronomaster chronograph (usually called the Chronomaster 1969) may be better choices. The Synopsis isn't technically part of the Chronomaster line, but I view it as a three-hand Chronomaster on an aesthetic level. For size reasons, I tend to prefer the more affordable Reserve model, but if size was no issue, it'd be this Chronomaster Grande Date.
