Mad or possessed?Roger Dubuis is thus unashamedly guilty of that most serious of the seven deadly sins: Pride, known in Latin as SUPERBIA. Strongly linked to vanity and risk-taking, SUPERBIA is also regarded as having an obsessive addiction to adrenaline, just like, in fact, Roger Dubuis itself. Driven by this, along with its firm belief in living larger than life, Roger Dubuis has created Excalibur Superbia, the ultimate totem for a tribe of people who trust that life is but a game that is for making the most of.

The ultimate example of the Maison’s unshakable pride and excess, Excalibur Superbia is crafted in palladium-enriched white gold and set with exactly 600 precious white diamonds and blue sapphires. This offers a truly extravagant (and ideal) housing for Roger Dubuis iconic signature calibre: a brand-new DOUBLE FLYING TOURBILLON movement, the RD108SQ, inspired by its legendary version launched in 2005, the first double-regulator calibre connected with a differential, built up in volume and adorned with a diamond-set star. For the RD108SQ, paying tribute to Roger Dubuis’ status as a forerunner in the field of this extreme complication mastered by few other watchmakers, in the RD108SQ, the double flying tourbillon is transformed into the ultimate iconic signature.

Excalibur Superbia

Aptly demonstrated by multiple tricks embodied in this latest iteration of off-the-radar hyper horology, the devil, as Roger Dubuis knows all too well, is in the details. In the Excalibur Superbia, Roger Dubuis once again reinventsthe game like no one ever has before.Sending it firmly into the hallowed halls of World Premieres, the excessiveness of the Excalibur Superbia comes neither from its alloy nor its number of stones. What makes it truly bold is that every stone set on the flange, the bezel, the case and the crown is tetrahedron shaped and assembled with an invisible setting on curved surfaces. The hardest way to set a stone, an invisible setting becomes nearly impossible when required on a curved surface.

Where no man dares to tread

Not only has no jeweller or watchmaker ever dared to set a piece in this way, certainly no one has ever been crazy or ambitious enough to do it on a masculine watch. Until now. In this masterpiece in which the complexity of the pattern surpasses any norm known to mankind, master craftsmen at the Maison’s Geneva Manufacture have thus set about creating a backbone structure to encapsulate each stone from the back, complying with the brand’s total determination to avoid any material between the stones themselves.To complicate matters further, each and every glittering stone in the Excalibur Superbia is a tetrahedron, a shape requiring boundless cutting skill as its extreme thinness greatly increases the risk of breaking.

The concept of impossible is nothing if not meaningless at Roger Dubuis where the next challenge is simply round the corner, so not only did every stone have to be tetrahedron-shaped, the pattern was designed so that all 238 stones featured in the case of the Excalibur Superbia has a different shape and is thus singular.

Adding insult to injury, the design also demanded that the long-suffering craftsmen of the Manufacture would at times have to deal with the points of six or seven stones meeting simultaneously in the same spot.The test of Roger Dubuis setters’ skill does not stop here, however. The final sting in the tail of the Excalibur Superbia comes with the grooving –the last step required to complete the invisible setting with the previously perfectly triangulated stones.

This is so hard to do on a tetrahedron stone that it took each gemsetter an average of 30 minutes to do a single groove, corresponding to 900 hours for this operation alone on all three sides of the 600 diamonds, plus 420 hours to set the case and bezel–and that’s without even counting the stone-cutting!

The entire process takes about three times longer than the same case set with baguette-cut stones. And just for good measure, reaching the very pinnacle of complexity Roger Dubuis-style, in the Excalibur Superbia, this already painstaking, groundbreaking process has been entirely achieved on a curved surface.Simple, straight and utterly frank, the lines of this exceptional piece of artistry are strongly reminiscent of the spatial art forms favoured byinterior design artist KAZ SHIRANE with whom the brand that dares to be different shares a number of characteristics –not least from a visual perspective.

“I create interactive spaces that focuses on visitors. Whenever the space user enters a room filled with mirrors, there will be interaction –a reflection in mirrors -and the user can become the co-creator of this space. This mirrored space is designed to serve as a receiver and amplifier of the user’s will.

The space literally reflects the mind of the visitor, enabling him/her to become an artist. The only rule imposed on visitors in my installation is to enjoy the space as freely as they want. “Roger Dubuis and I share the same vision: we create incredible pieces that make people feel they arethe protagonists. For me, the Roger Dubuis Superbia watch is like a time machine that can take us to an extraordinary world in an instant. I always want to create such space in my artworks.

The elaborate craftsmanship is, of course, absolutely wonderful. But beyond that, what struck me the most is that it is a very artistic piece: its distinctive design catches the light so beautifully and can be noticed even from afar.I was honoured that my work inspired the design of their new watch. It proves that arthas many facets and can open up to new possibilities.I admire Roger Dubuis as it pours its heart into making its products; the importance it attaches to quality as well as its attention to details are visible in every aspect. I am looking forward to exploring this collaboration further. My role will be to express the Roger Dubuis philosophy and enable customers to experience its one-of-a-kind world through my art”

https://www.rogerdubuis.com/en

The post The Epitome of Excess – Roger Dubuis Superbia appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

When he presented his first Résonance wristwatch in 2000, it was baptized Résonance under the patented brand name Résonance®. The F.P.Journe Chronomètre à Résonance is the only wristwatch in the world that utilizes the physical natural resonance without any mechanical transmission phenomenon, previously known as double pendulum or double balance. 

Conceived, developed and built to meet the demands of actual wear on the wrist and thereby provide chronometric performance driven to extremes, this watch represents one of the wildest challenges in the field of mechanical watches! Each of the two balances alternately serves as exciter and resonator. When the two balances are in movement, they enter into harmony thanks to the resonance phenomenon and begin to beat naturally in opposition. The two balances then support each other, giving more inertia to their movement. This result is possible only if the difference of the frequency from one to the other does not exceed 5 seconds per day cumulated on six positions. Their setting is an extremely delicate task. 

Whereas an external disturbance affects the running of a traditional mechanical watch, the same disturbance, for the Chronomètre à Réso- nance, produces an effect that accelerates one of the balances as much as it slows down the other. Little by little, the two balances come back towards each other to find their point of harmony, thus eliminating the disturbance, and beating in perfect synchronization. 

This emblematic watch that distinctively signs François-Paul Journe’s horological research on precision was awarded “Montre à Grande Com- plication” at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2010. François-Paul Journe has conceived several versions of his wristwatch throughout the last 20 years; the first 20 by Subscription (2000), the first collection series (2001), the Ruthenium series (2001-2002), with movement in 18 K rose Gold (2005), the digital 24 hours Résonance (2010), the analogic 24 hours Résonance (2019), and the new Chronomètre à Réso- nance (2020). 

Moving towards more precision, always! 

The new Chronomètre à Résonance has only one single barrel spring to provide power for the two movements. A differential placed on the first wheel, visible in the centre of the dial, transmits, independently, the energy of the barrel spring towards the two secondary gear trains. Each sec- ondary gear train is equipped with a Remontoir d’Egalité of a frequency of 1 second. Working in such a way, the force received by the escapements remains linear and assures isochronism throughout 28 hours. 

The Chronomètre à Résonance features a redesigned case with a crown now placed at 2 o’clock easing the winding of the watch in position 0 and the time setting in position 2, clockwise for the left dial and anti-clockwise for the right dial. The pulling of the crown at 4 o’clock simul- taneously resets both seconds. 

On the movement side, 2 remontoirs d’égalité (constant-force device) provide a linear force to each of the two balance springs to remain isochronous during 28 hours. 

This model is available with a case in Platinum or in 18 K 6N Gold in 40 or 42 mm diameter. The dial is proposed in 18 K white or 6N Gold with 2 hour subdials in whitened Silver Guilloché clous de Paris. Leather strap or Gold or Platinum bracelet. 

The resonance phenomenon_ 

Resonance is a natural acoustic phenomenon. Any animate body transmits a vibration to its environment. When another body picks up this vibration at the same frequency, it absorbs its energy. In watchmaking it pertains to two independent movements set side by side that get in synchronization. 

Few examples: a soprano’s voice. She delicately sings into a glass until she hears to which frequency the glass replies and then, she emits a stentorian sound at that same frequency. The glass then vibrates in sympathy. If the energy provided is sufficient, the glass will not be able to tolerate it and will break. 

Musicians who play wind and stringed instruments also know about the resonance phenomenon, as Keith Jarrett mentioned in the first ca- talogue of F.P.Journe. Certain strings on lutes and sitars, for example, are not made to be touched; they vibrate by resonance when the mu- sician plucks the strings in close proximity to them. 

All radio communication systems, transmitters and receivers, use resonators to “filter” the frequencies of the signals they use. When we are looking for a program on the radio, it crackles until the chosen wavelengths meet those of the transmitter: only then do they harmonize to begin resonating together. 

A bridge is subjected to vertical and transversal oscillations, or torsion. In 1850, a troop that was crossing a bridge suspended over the Maine River in Angers, and that was marching in step to the same rhythm, caused the bridge to rupture, leading to the death of 226 soldiers. Military regulations forbid them to walk in step across a bridge. 

Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, uses the resonance of a body’s protons to produce images. An automobile, with its suspension system, is an oscillator! Shock absorbers prevent the vehicle from resonating sharply. 

Large buildings subjected to earthquakes are protected by installing an oscillator (a large pendulum) that is suspended above the building and whose own frequency is similar to that of the building. In this manner, the pendulum absorbs the energy, preventing the building from collapsing. 

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