The Grey NATO – 225 – Diving Under The Ice And Into The Latest From AP
Published on Fri, 03 Feb 2023 12:00:00 -0500
Synopsis
The hosts discuss Jason's recent trip to Switzerland to attend Audemars Piguet's watch release event, where he got to see the brand's new complicated and high-end timepieces like the new ceramic Offshore, ultra-thin perpetual calendar, and the Universal watch with 23 complications. They also talk about Jason's recent ice diving adventure in freezing temperatures where visibility was extremely low. For the final notes, Jason recommends the Netflix documentary "Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive" and Blake raves about the new 2nd generation AirPods Pro.
Links
Transcript
| Speaker | |
|---|---|
| Blake Buettner | Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 225. And it's proudly brought to you by the ever growing and always fun TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you're listening and don't support the show, but would like to just visit thegraynado.com for more details. Hey, Jason, how are we doing? Keeping warm these days? |
| Jason Heaton | Barely. Yeah, trying, you know, doing my best despite my adventure last weekend. You know, it's kind of funny. We're recording this on a Thursday when we normally record on a Tuesday because of your travel this week. But it was funny. I was looking at our Slack group this morning and a few people like popped up and didn't hear us mention last week that we were going to do this late. And they were like, I can't find the episode in my feed. And I was like, you know, just glad that somebody notices, you know, that we're missing today. |
| Blake Buettner | I suppose yeah, I get we might have to change up the way we do the start of the show because I get the feeling that a good like a good percentage one in seven something like that aren't listening to the updates that we put at the front of the show and I put them right at the start so that you know that this episode will be late and we're recording this midday on a Thursday because I was in Switzerland for nearly the better part of the last week and we just didn't have the ability to reliably be able to record the show and we wanted to be even be able to talk about some stuff that kind of I try never to break the format on whether or not we can run it 6 a.m. on Eastern Time on Thursdays, but the next choice from this would be like skip this week, which we didn't want to do. Skipping a show by February is a bummer. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Well, it'll be a good weekend listen for people, I hope. People have time to listen with their coffee or whatever on a Sunday. |
| Blake Buettner | And yeah, I just got back from a trip. |
| Jason Heaton | I don't know, 12 hours ago. |
| Blake Buettner | Right. So how, how, how are things for you? Uh, you're leaving on a trip, uh, just shortly after we record next week's episode. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Next Wednesday, I'm flying off somewhere. Uh, probably, gosh, what is it today? We're, we're, we're, uh, below freezing. Uh, well, it's probably about 10 degrees Fahrenheit here, so it's probably gonna be another 70 degrees warmer, even more. Uh, when I get there, which I'm looking forward to not wearing socks and getting a little sun on my face, I Can't wait for that. And I'll, I'll talk more about that next week when we record, um, the day before the day before I leave. So yeah, super excited about that. I did manage to, to sneak in the ice diving, which I'll talk about a little bit later. Um, and then this next trip will involve diving of a very different sort. So definitely looking forward to that. Cause it's, you know, it's been. I don't know. You know, this January was, was warmer than usual, but it just feels like this winter is really starting to crawl. Like it's, it's getting long and the one saving grace is the days are getting longer, which I like, but we just got a lot of snow and there's a lot of ice and yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. How was Switzerland? Was it very wintry there? |
| Blake Buettner | It was super wintry, actually very similar weather to Toronto. So just, just below freezing. Yeah. Um, pretty cloudy, kind of overcast that, that kind of day where the snow in the sky are the same color. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I had about a day in Geneva to kill before the program started on Monday, and it was a whole basically a series of presentations for what Audemars Piguet calls their kind of first semester. So the first half of the year, I believe, is their semester releases. So it's the better part of like 15 watches, 14 watches, something like that. By the time this comes out, all of those will be covered either by Bohodinky or on AP's website. We're not covering everything. Some things are here, there, that sort of thing. But basically, we had... The whole press strip was run out of their kind of headquarters in Les Brassus, which includes this incredible AP hotel. Oh, right. I'll put a photo of it. It's this really cool piece of architecture and sustainability modeling for the hotel and the rest of it. So we got to go there, got to go to the museum, got to kind of be very briefly hands on with a bunch of different watches, It wasn't your normal sort of trip because no professional level photography was allowed. So like when I accepted the trip, I kind of assumed you would have, you know, 20 minutes with every watch to take some photos with a proper camera that could be used for hands-on coverage, that sort of thing. And then just a couple of days before the trip, the edict came down from AP that there wouldn't be any, any time to do that. So if you wanted to snap a shot with your iPhone, that was acceptable. Each of these little workshops or sessions was like maybe 20, 22 minutes. And there's eight or nine people in each one. And if it's, there's only one watch, then you can imagine what that means. Once they've actually talked about the watch and kind of done like an unveiling and all this kind of stuff, there's six minutes left. So you have a minute with the watch. So, uh, if, if the wrist shots in the, in the stories that we, that, you know, that went up on Houdinki didn't seem kind of our normal, uh, it's just cause what we had was big windows and iPhones. |
| Jason Heaton | I'm curious about that. The hotel you stayed at or the museum. I remember the renderings that they showed when they were starting to conceive of that. It's, It's next to the manufacturer. And is it that sort of spiral shaped thing? |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. So that's the museum. Okay. So yeah, it's exactly next to the headquarters and it's their museum is this spiral, almost like a shell, like a not a conch, if you imagine. The cool thing about it is it has no structure, vertical structure that isn't glass. Oh wow. So there's a huge layer that's held up exclusively by glass panels. It's kind of connected to the original manufacturer. And so you're walking through a hundred plus maybe 150 plus or even older than that building, depending on the room you're in. And then you walk out of it and into the space that has this huge, very kind of heavy roof, but no visible structure. Wow. There's no pillars, like you get towards the outside and the glass, which is curved. Each piece is curved kind of on its own to make the circle, the shape they want. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Blake Buettner | So it's not faceted. It looks like it would curve like it's a single piece, like a single organic curvature. Yeah. But they're laminated several piece, like some of them are seven pieces of glass laminated together because of the weight of the roof and then factoring for snow on top of that roof and all that kind of stuff. Wow. So saw some incredible architecture. The second day we were there, we actually went to AP's R&D facility, which other people would know as Rinoa Poppy, which is in Lilac. And it's also this like dual cantilever, incredible piece of architecture that sits up on a hill. It's a very hectic trip. I mean, it was a day and a half on one side just to get to Switzerland, because there's still no direct Toronto to Geneva. Yeah, I did all that, and it was good. I'm happy I got it done. I'm also just thrilled to be home. No big trips on the horizon, just trying to keep up with getting everybody ready for watches and wonders and the rest of it. I'm trying to think of what else I did. Oh, this is the first time that I ran like I've done a trip where I didn't take my laptop. So because we weren't going to be doing a ton of photo editing, I actually ended up doing quite a bit, but not as much as I might normally do. I just took my iPad. Which version iPad is this? So I have the current gen iPad Pro in the 11 inch. Oh, okay. And I've basically fallen in love with it, because you can do two things at once, just like I do on my laptop, so you can split things up left and right on your screen. Yeah. And I could be sitting there responding to emails on the plane while watching Slow Horses, which is what I did for the entire series yesterday. I think I watched from two to six. Absolutely loved it. Yeah. But yeah, as far as the ability to have a device that does media, that definitely has the power to edit photographs, both those shot on a conventional larger scale camera or something, obviously something like an iPhone, and then to have it also just work really well for the size of the space that you have on an airplane. A 16 inch MacBook, especially if you're in economy, it just doesn't fit. You can't get the screen at the right angle where you can still touch the keyboard, and then if somebody cranks their chair back, you have even less space. So to be able to do all this and still have it kind of sort out how I needed it to was incredible. I just dropped it all in my Tango, my Observer Collection Tango, and that's what I rocked up in. And then I use it with the... There's two Apple keyboards. The Magic one is the expensive one that's a little bit bulkier, but holds the iPad a little higher, and it has a cool hinge and will also charge the iPad, more like a laptop. I'm using the cheaper one, which I think is called the Folio keyboard. And I really like it. It's simple, it's not backlit, it just folds up, but it's the thinnest, smallest, lightest one that I could find, and I was super happy with it. I probably did 5,000 words on it yesterday. It's a little bit more compressed than a normal keyboard, but it really only took me two or three emails to start to get the home row to feel natural, and then you just go from there. So if you're ever on that list or if you're in a space where most of what you do on an airplane is I don't know, replying to emails or something like that. Like not, not necessarily intensive stuff, but you do want the keyboard and the larger screen, like more than say your phone. Yeah. Very happy with it. And despite that being a complete snob for full size Mac books as far as power and the rest of it, but this is, was really good. |
| Jason Heaton | Huh? I mean, it sounds like a good option for, for somebody like me who I really don't do a lot of photo or any video editing and it's just record a podcast or a lot of writing. And I often think that, next time around, like it might be a good option. And I'm sure by the time I'm ready to move on from my current Mac book, I've got an error. Um, we're very recent one. That might be a good, good way to go. |
| Blake Buettner | It's not perfect, but I do think it w it would work for a lot of different scenarios. At some point I'll try recording an episode of the show on it. I just, I don't really have the, the patience to lose an episode or, or have it be not good enough. Um, yeah, in that scenario. And I don't really know how easy it would be to say, edit a show to the extent that I do. Oh, sure. With touch, like without a mouse and keyboard, but maybe that's just me being a bit of an elitist or a curmudgeon, I'm not sure. Yeah. Speaking of being an elitist and an angry one at that, why do people bring babies into business class? So on my flight yesterday, there was like three children in business class under three years old, and so one of them would wake the other two up. So it was basically a nine hour flight and six hours of yelling. Wow, some of it and happy, most of it like angry, sad baby sounds yeah and like I get it, you got a fly place. You got to take your kid with you. Why not just buy a whole row in economy, because like you otherwise you have the kid on your lap in business class, so you're not enjoying business class. The kid doesn't care. I don't know this is probably like such a niche argument, even because the business class thing and the baby thing within our audience. This is a problem just for me, which is fine. It's not it's not a real problem. It's like a you know this doesn't babies and business class doesn't factor into Maslow's hierarchy of needs, so we'll be okay. But it just blew me away because it was something I would never have considered doing even if I was, you know, spending a lot of money on my own tickets. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I feel wholly unqualified to comment on how people handle their kids, not having kids myself. But yeah, it does seem a bit counterintuitive to do that. It's not like the kids need the leg room. And if they're sitting on your own lap, then it kind of defeats the purpose. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. You want to get into some wrist checks? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. Speaking of Le Brassus, I'm wearing something awfully special today. Last week, just a couple of days before my ice dive, this watch showed up on the doorstep. It's a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Automatique Titanium. You know, the Fifty Fathoms everyone knows and loves. Full disclosure, I'm actually going to be doing some work with Blancpain, kind of a project, and they offered me this watch is kind of partial compensation for it. And, uh, you know, who am I to turn that down? So, uh, you know, I feel very fortunate to have it and, you know, it's a watch that I normally wouldn't be able to afford if I was making a purchase myself. So, so, um, you know, I'm really lucky to have this on my wrist, of course. And while you can kind of take what I have to say about it with a grain of salt, they, they didn't, certainly didn't ask me to review it or talk about it or anything like that. But, uh, all of that having been said, it is, it's quite a, It's quite a piece of horological art here and in a very tool-ish way. I've been wearing it nonstop for a little over a week now. And, you know, I wasn't sure like when it arrived, I thought, okay, this, this is a big watch. It's, it's not maybe my, wouldn't have been maybe my first choice if I was looking kind of through their whole catalog of, of watches. I like some of their, you know, the 40 millimeter tribute pieces or LEs, the, the Mocharon piece, the, the, the kind of did that sort of desert colored bathyscaphe, things like that. know, I'm really quite taken with this one, especially and I think the game changer with it is that it's the titanium version. I've spent time with the steel version and it's, you know, there's no denying this is a big watch. It's a 45 millimeter watch, but it's 50 millimeters lug to lug and about 13 millimeters thick. So it's not extraordinarily big in those dimensions compared to, you know, some of the watches that we're used to. And it, the titanium makes it amazingly light. I weighed it and it's, it's 94 grams on a NATO strap, which is how I'm wearing it currently. Um, and, and by comparison, I, I weighed my 2254 Seamaster on its rubber strap and it comes in heavier. It's at 96 grams. So this is, this is actually, it's a, it's a really comfortable watch to wear and having worn it kind of 24 seven for a week compared to even that the Seamaster Racing that I talked about in our collection inspection, that that's a watch that is similar in, in kind of diameter and size, but being steel, it's, it's just weighs a ton and I just can't wear it for more than a day or two. And then you throw in the fact that this one has this, it's sort of a, you know how on Seiko watches, like it's sort of cut under, it sort of tapers down towards the case back. This one does something similar. So the case is almost like bowl shaped. So it's actually narrower where it hits your wrist. It's actually closer to like 41 or 42 and then kind of, expands as it gets up to the bezel, which is at 45 millimeters. And so it's really quite well balanced on the wrist. And as being the titanium version, it doesn't have that high polish that the steel one does, which I really like. It's kind of a full matte brushed finish. |
| Blake Buettner | That's great. Yeah. I saw a couple of pictures of it. You put one on Instagram. I think it's definitely a great looking watch. Obviously, pretty much everybody's a fan of the way the Fifty Fathoms look, especially the ones that kind of stick Yeah. To the, the kind of core design language. That's a, that's awesome. I'm glad you're happy with it. Despite, you know, and it's certainly a big watch, but you know, we've done a whole episode on big watches. They can be a whole lot of fun. Uh, as long as you get kind of the right combination that works for you. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And, and it's funny, you know, when it, when it arrived, I was like, okay, it's, it's here in time for me to take ice diving. So I, but it came on that sailcloth strap that they're kind of known for, which would have been way too short to fit around my, my dry suit cuff. So I wanted to put a NATO strap on it, but the strap bars are these, Um, screw type and, and the head of the screw is like this Allen, Allen screw hex head style. And I didn't have a Allen screw screwdriver that small. So I actually went on Amazon and I found one for 30 bucks that was actually sold as a Blancpain strap changing tool. Then it came with a separate little one for the other side of the bar. Um, and it worked, worked like a charm. It was great. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. There's like one that you use as like a hole. right to kind of keep it from sliding and that one's bent and the other side's like a conventional palm pivoting screwdriver. It's when you linked it to me, I'm like it's kind of funny that's on Amazon and you're saying the same thing. Yeah, but it's got to be useful, especially for titanium. Like you don't want to put a big old gouge in the case, right, right, trying to balance, you know, sometimes those hacks or torques ones you can fit like a conventional screwdriver and kind of wedge him in there. |
| Unknown | Yeah, |
| Blake Buettner | But man, imagine that slides and you put a half a centimeter gouge through the titanium. That's a bummer on a watch like that, for sure. You wanna earn the scratches on boats and ladders and dive gear and that kind of stuff, not on changing the strap. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. And the slightly annoying thing is that it's... Well, it's actually fairly annoying. It has 23 millimeter lugs, so it's such an odd size. Oh, that is tough. I did a quick search for 23 millimeter straps and there's Very few options. And you know, the sailcloth straps, excellent and it's rubber and textile. So, you know, I couldn't get a wet, take a diving, whatever, but it's, it's really stiff and it's not my favorite. So for the time being and for, for diving last week, I, I put it on 22 kind of looks okay. It works fine. It's such a tiny gap that it doesn't really, doesn't really matter. And the one that seemed to work well was that triple lot quantum strap, the really expensive NATO that they sell, which has the milled titanium hardware, which kind of seemed to work well with this watch. So that's, that's kind of how I'm, I'm rocking it these days. So yeah, all in all, um, you know, thrilled with it, really fun watch. I mean the movement spectacular of course. And, and, uh, yeah, I'm excited to, uh, to, uh, take it somewhere warmer and dive in a few days. |
| Blake Buettner | So. Absolutely. That's great. A nice addition for the trip of sure. Uh, and, and kind of a nice, um, a nice like compliment to the other, the bathyscaphe you have. which is small and sort of a different style. |
| Unknown | Yeah, totally. |
| Blake Buettner | This kind of gives you two of the best sides of the kind of Blancpain 50 fathoms dive watch language sort of stuff. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, totally. And since Kashani wears the other one that's being 38 millimeters, she's sort of commandeered that one for all time, and so I don't wear it that much. But yeah, that's a great watch, and now we can both be happy. That's great. And you got something really cool in today or recently, and I'm excited to hear about it. I think everybody's excited to hear about this one. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah, yeah. So I've got the Momentum C Quartz 30 on wrist right now, and it arrived in Toronto a few hours before I did yesterday and was waiting on my desk for me, and I pulled it out of the box this morning when I got up. And I really like it. I mean, we've talked about it in the past and part of that's the price point. It's $259. In this case, I got it with the black and the orange. They sent me the watch and the strap. So I'm wearing it on the orange kind of tropic style strap. It kind of matches really nicely with the minute hand. And largely, I'm impressed. I mean, for the money, I'm very impressed. It wears very similarly to a slightly larger CWC. Yeah. And I think in this case, the case is very similar. The presence and weight and such is the same. I would say this has the impression of a larger dial and it is about, what, two millimeters bigger. It's not as nice of a bezel compared to what you get on the CWC, which is 60 click and really smooth and feels basically perfect. It's one of my favorite bezels. But for the price point, I don't think you can be that picky about the bezel. The bezel, as they have it, is 120 click. Feels pretty good. Grip isn't super sharp, but it is usable. Not something I find to be like a big problem. Um, just not super, super easy to grip, but otherwise legibility is fantastic. It's nice to have a day date movement. Of course, I think quartz is fair for the price point. And then you're still getting, you know, a 300 meter dive ready watch, um, with, with kind of a solid, you know, late seventies, early eighties sort of styling. Uh, I think it comes together really successfully. So a big thanks to, um, momentum for sending me one and I'll work on a story of some sort for the next little while. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, I can't wait to see that. Yeah. They, they mentioned that they were going to send me one to check out as well. So I, it's a super exciting. I mean, I've been for many years, I kind of looked at the vintage versions of these and, and they're, they're going for a fair amount of money now. So I'm glad somebody recreated this. And that's the fact that they have that chronosport connection makes it all the better. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah, I agree. So yeah, a cool piece. If you were, if you're curious, I don't think they're in stock right now. So you've got time to make your decision, I suppose. Yeah, but I don't think you can go wrong for the price point. And like we said last time, this is the sort of watch that makes a great gift, would be incredible for somebody who maybe is at a point in their life where they need a very legible watch versus, you know, a watch with little tiny hands or whatever. And I think if you want it as like your go to grab and go summer jump off a dock sort of watch, I think it would work perfectly for that too. I'm looking at some point this afternoon when we're done recording, whatever, I'll throw it on a NATO because I'd like to try that as well. But The 42 feels fine. I like it. It's not too big, not too small, certainly. It's not especially thick, and that Monin style case has the nice guards on the crown and has a little bit of a drop curvature to the lug, so it sits nice and flat. And the straps are kind of what we've come to expect from the normal sort of tropic style straps. They're smooth and soft rubber. There's enough gapping that with a really hot... If you take a lighter and heat up a drill bit, you can poke yourself another hole. I'm always between holes on these. I don't know why. Sure. I'm impressed with it. I just, and I also love having a watch at this price point that you can recommend. I know that, like I said, they're currently hard to buy, but that won't be forever. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. It seems like such a summery watch. I mean, maybe it's the Magnum PI connection. I picture, you know, the Hawaiian shirt and really short, short and kind of a swim trunks, but you know, just target top Ferrari. Yeah. Oh man, come on. I mean, yeah, that'd be perfect for your |
| Blake Buettner | cottage trips this summer. Yeah, I think so too. So that's what I've got on my wrist for today. And um, and yeah, I guess with that we can probably get right into the main topic. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, let's do it. We're, we're kind of just getting caught up cause uh, you've been traveling and I had kind of a fun adventure last weekend. So we, we, we talked a little bit about kind of your travels to Switzerland. What about the watches themselves? Was there, I'm guessing given it was AP probably not super TGN, um, |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah, not anything like it, certainly not in our price point maybe, but in terms of trying to connect to stuff that we do normally talk about, there's... We've talked about Royal Oak, I like to ramble about Royal Oak on here. So they've got a new jumbo with kind of a sil... A grained blue dial that's kind of Tuscan style. So if you know the history of your APs, jumbos, QPs, otherwise, the Tuscan dials are pretty special things. So that's also in white gold, which was, I believe, the metal missing from when they launched the 16202 previously. |
| Jason Heaton | What is, sorry, what does the Tuscan part refer to? I'm not familiar with that. |
| Blake Buettner | So instead of having a tapisserie dial, it has this sort of grained, it's a stamped dial, so that's how they make it, but it's a, it's like a grained finish, kind of has like, like imagine like a, like it has a texture to it, but it's a, it's a toothier texture than say like Teflon. Oh, okay. But I'll put an example. If you go to the show notes, there'll be a Tuscan dial example. They come in a bunch of different colors. I wouldn't say that this one is specifically a Tuscan dial, more like it's in the genre. Beyond that, I mean, if we try and point in a loosely more TGN arc, then the other big release would be they've essentially remade the original Offshore. It's now the 30th anniversary of the Offshore. So they've remade the original Offshore, but they've done it in ceramic, black brush ceramic. Yeah, so it's the new 42 millimeter. The standard size of the Offshore is now 43, but it's an entirely different case. This is literally a ceramic beast. It's all black. It has white markings. It's actually pretty monotone, which looks pretty cool. And then the black ceramic has a brushing to it, but the brushing kind of fires, not in a way that's dissimilar than the Pelgos 39, in that the brushing plays with the light a little bit. So it has this shininess to it that feels different than the steel ones. that you might think of, you know, modern movement, all that kind of stuff, full ceramic bracelet. I think the pricing I found surprising, but it's also hard to think how they even came up with the price. It's AP, right? And they're selling something that they're not going to make a ton of them. So I think they're like 70,000 Swiss francs for the full ceramic. And I guess that is significantly less than their full ceramic QPs. So if you compare it that way, it's still a chronograph, you know, it's, but it's also if you compare it to like what other brands might be charging for a full ceramic watch or what AP is charged for offshore ceramics, you know, they're not full, they're not chronographs, whatever in the past, then it becomes like a price point where if you're pretty deep into the space, I'd be interested to know how you hit, how it hits you. Yeah. I think it's more interesting to say like, is it mispriced? And I guess that depends on if they sell and from what I understand they sell. And, and I don't, I can't imagine, that one, they don't make that many watches. AP makes 50,000 watches a year. So this is gonna represent a tiny slice of that. And I don't know how price sensitive the audience is. I do find it fascinating because 70,000 Swiss francs is so much money for a chronograph, regardless of what it's made of, to a certain extent. But it's also a chronograph from Audemars Piguet. It's also in a fully ceramic case with the bracelet. I think it's very cool. It was really awesome on wrist. And then the other thing they had there was a first gen, the original from 83. Oh, cool. So the first 100 offshores ever made, they didn't even engrave offshore in the case back because they were worried if it flopped, they would have used up the name and they really liked the name. Yeah. Offshore racing, like the connection to the boating, they were running a boat team in 84. So they wanted a chance to like AP was heavily involved with an offshore team and they wanted a chance to preserve the naming in case they wanted to try again. Interesting. Um, and, and the watch didn't sell well or that quickly. I think they said it took years to go through 700 of them or something like that. And then it started to pick up as it, like they were just a little bit ahead of the time. |
| Jason Heaton | I mean, the, the original up when, when it came out, like it was before I was even remotely into watches. Um, I mean that, that must've created such a stir and to see them nowadays, it looks, it still looks, you know, it's very distinctive obviously, but yeah, as the offshore has, aged and evolved. The original one almost looks quaint, doesn't it? |
| Blake Buettner | It's... It does. And when it came out, it was people nicknamed it the beast. Gerald Genta famously said, like, what have you done to my design? Yeah. And wasn't a fan of it, compared it to a whale or a hippo or something like that. And it was 42 millimeters, a huge watch in the 80s, right? |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Blake Buettner | And it's a thick watch, it was made in steel. Of course, we've talked about on previous episodes of titanium QP versions of this watch and all sorts of really neat stuff. And of course, it's also the watch that would eventually kind of spin off into 48 millimeter ones made for famous sailing teams or Arnold Schwarzenegger, like the watch is a whole cult around it. And I have to think that this one will sit right in there where like if you have the first one and you're a big watch collector, how could you not try and get your name on the list for this one? Yeah. And gives them an option of doing thing, another platform that is now kind of what you what you said, Jason, kind of in the middle in terms of how wild the brand gets. Yeah, yeah. Right? The standard design just isn't that buck wild, just like the standard diver isn't that wild. That's why they did the forged carbon and the ceramic, and then they went into these great big sizes, and now they've got, you know, new expressions of the offshore that have, you know, very high-end complications and things like that, and suddenly it makes this one seem kind of middle. this is essentially them remaking the jumbo, but for a modern thing. And you have to assume, I'll be very clear, nobody from AP told me this, I don't have any insider tips, and if I did, I wouldn't be able to talk about them, so I can say this. You could see them doing the same thing they did in the 80s, where this comes out at different dial colors, different materials, they just start with ceramic, right? Sure, yeah. Other than that, there's a lot to cover. They've got the code 1159 is kind of aesthetically redesigned for a full new range of steel models, a chronograph range and a three-hander. In my mind, they wear really well. They feel great. They're less expensive than almost anything else from AP. So I would say less expensive. They're not inexpensive. I think they start around 17,000 Swiss francs for a three-hander. The date is now at three o'clock on the three-handers, not in one of the places that people don't like. And they've swapped out some of the ways that the markers work. So these used bar markers feel a little bit more AP versus the Arabic numerals of the previous ones. And the dials are these incredibly patterned, very complicated guilloche effect that then is kind of has a certain color range in a blue, a green, and sort of a burnt tan color. So those were super impressive to see. I really liked the chronograph in person. And the tan one has a almost like a Bremont sort of way of doing it with a ceramic center barrel. Oh, okay. So you get a little bit of color on the side of the watch. Yeah. It just feels kind of grown up, a nice kind of extension, and then it's another watch that hasn't been in steel, so you add that in. I got to see kind of the lineage of the Starwheel, so one of these wandering hour... Oh, sure. Clocks, and how far back that goes, and now there's a new Starwheel in the code 1159, and I fell in love with this watch. It's like cartoonish and really cool, and it's the right size, and the movement is so much fun to use. you know, if you're thinking of wandering hours, then now you're into Urwerk, you're into, you know, past iterations, certainly from AP with floating sapphire dials, and in some cases they're hidden, in some cases they have these radial elements, and this is kind of a new evolution of that. Pretty cool. Again, I mean, it's a complicated AP, so it's 40,000 Swiss francs. And then beyond that, they've got a new ultra-thin QP, so essentially an evolution of the RD2. This is a watch that, like, It was just so exciting for me to see in person. I probably won't get to see another one. They're making 200 of them. So they originally made the RD2 in mostly titanium, the bezel in the middle, the intermediary links on the bracelet are platinum. And then they made a one-off kind of demonstration prototype model in full platinum. Wow. But it's learned a lot from that, and it's basically full titanium. So bezel and intermediary links are titanium, everything except the screws. On any Royal Oak, the screws have to be white gold, or I guess yellow gold. but on a white metal and it has a new dial. So instead of a tapestry dial, it has this sort of gradient blue dial that goes to black at the edges and the sub dials are black. I didn't like the way this looked in images and it's awesome in person. This is the watch for me. This is the watch equivalent of sitting in a car that I love like a sports car or like you just get this big grin on your face and you kind of marvel in all the details and you know in two or three minutes, you'll never sit in this car again. Yeah, and I gave the watch back and I had to force myself to walk away. It's just I love APQPs. It's one of my favorite things about the brand, and I love them when they're not... The modern ones are a little bit bigger, and this one certainly has some width to it, but the thinness is so cool, and the RD2 is such an incredibly cool watch. These are one of these watches where I would suggest that if you're listening to this and you're like, why are they talking about such expensive watches for so long? This is the sort of watch that might bring you into the process of just learning about a watch because it's cool, not because you ever have any ability to buy it. I never will. It almost would arguably not matter how successful I could possibly become. It's just a very cool thing to see in person, and I know, you know, I probably won't see one again unless I get to, you know, hang out with the right person sometime in the future. And then finally, if you really want to lean into a watch that would be appealing even if you never get a chance to see one, it's the new Universal or Universal, depending on your pronunciation. It's a code-based watch, and it's the most complicated watch AP's ever made. So it's essentially a wrist watch version of a watch that they have in their... That's kind of the centerpiece of the museum's collection. It's a huge pocket watch called the Universal. And this watch has 23 complications, the modern one, the one they just announced. Wow. Has 23 complications, another 17 technical functions is what they call them. So it's roughly... So they don't call it a super comp, they call it an ultra comp. The coolest thing about this is the whole project was kind of spearheaded by Julio Papi, who wanted to make an ultra complicated watch that had to follow three rules. It had to be easy to wear, had to be easy to set, and had to be easy to read. Which, like, those are not things that you would attribute to most of these watches, right? They might be easy to wear and easy to read, but they'll be impossible to set. Right. You'll need a little tool, and you'll have to go in a certain order, because if you advance the date, it's possible that it's tied to the month. So this watch is 42 millimeters wide. It's different. It's its own thing. It looks like every other Code 11-59 in terms of, like, size and proportion. It comes in a closed dial or an open work dial. It's like one and a half to like 1.7 something million dollars, so we can just get that out of the way. This is just exciting because it exists. I don't know how many they'll be able to make. I'm sure they'll be able to sell them. They'll sell as many as they're capable of making. All of the functions are controlled either by crowns or pushers, so there's no tools, nothing to scratch your case with or anything like that. It's a pretty legible watch, especially in the closed dial version. And then it's got a few other things. It's actually water resistant. Huh? Like they're, they're like, Oh, we aren't joking around. Like you could conceivably it's, I think they said it was a 50 meters water resistance and they said it's water resistant to 50 meters. That's impressive. |
| Jason Heaton | Wow. So you said 23 complications. Yup. Any, I mean, aside from kind of the usual suspects, any, any unusual ones you can think of? |
| Blake Buettner | So sure. It's got a grand sonnery or a super sonnery in the, perpetual calendar it has a two-digit year so like it would show 23 right now and you go like well I know what year it is that's not that important but you don't have to in this for this mechanism get your head around this you don't have to calculate the leap year it knows so when you set the watch and you set it to 2023 it knows where so you don't do the thing where it's one two three leap it doesn't do that yeah yeah and then the date which is a big date the day of the week and the month displays are independently adjustable of each other, both directions. So this is a perpetual calendar with year indication and like, I don't know, all the other complications you can name that aren't like sit a real time and that sort of stuff. Wow. And you can set this almost without taking it off your wrist. And like I said, you have a flyback retropont in the chronograph. You get about 60 plus hours of power reserve. from the setup, but it's an automatic, which is again, no, like other brands might do this, but it wouldn't be an automatic and it wouldn't be 42 millimeters. It wouldn't be, I think it's 15.5 or 15.4 millimeters thick, including a very domed crystal. It's jaw-dropping. Seven years of work. They basically took everything they learned from RD1, 2, and 3 and applied it here and did everything they can. Obviously it has a flying tourbillon. And it has like a hunter style case, so you can open the case from the back and see the additional parts of the movement. A supersonnery, of course, means it's a chiming repeater with on-demand. It has several different settings, like whether you want it to repeat, whether you want it to chime when pressed, or you want to mute it, all done by rotating the sleeve on the crown. Like it's just crazy how complicated it is. 1,500-ish pieces for the openwork, maybe a little more. I'm not, yeah, I mean, like it's hard to contextualize. |
| Jason Heaton | I have to think, I mean, not to diminish modern watchmakers, but you know, the watches we've been seeing in the past few years from, from these really, um, high end brands, uh, computer aided design and modern manufacturing obviously has, has allowed for this incredible leap in the ability to make these, these, these watches that have the ability to be set using crowns and pushers and things. I mean, it really is remarkable. I mean, it's, it's a, it's an incredible time to, to love watches. And I think, you know, earlier you said, why are we talking so much about AP when it's really not a TGN brand? But I do think that, you know, our listeners are, and we are by and large watch enthusiasts. And I don't think you can be interested in watches without, without respecting and taking some interest in a brand like AP or a Lange or something like that, because they're just the stuff they do is just, you're right. It's, it, it's the sort of story or the sort of watch or the sort of, topic that you'd enjoy reading about or looking at photos or really digging into without even the slightest notion that you'd own something like that? |
| Blake Buettner | Look, the only thing I could say is I'm the same guy whose voice you're listening to right now, it gets very excited about a $1.7 million ultra complication from AP that has like genuine innovation. It means that they've made a watch that you could actually, you made an incredibly complicated watch that a watch enthusiast could wear every day if they wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. The exact same person is super pumped about a $260 momentum. That's why I would still talk about it. I like both. Maybe a few of you like both. I think that if you're really into watches, there's several things that they did at these announcements that are just worth knowing about, like in the arc of the news for the year. Check out Hodinkee or any of the other great sites. I got to hang out with Frank from Monochrome and Robert Jan from Fratello and Andrew from Time and Tide and all that. And I think It was nice to see them. They'll, they'll have great coverage as well. There was lots of, uh, lots of cool people there. It was nice to reconnect with a handful of them, but yeah, that's, that's kind of my now kind of very prolonged explanation of several watches that to be clear are not financially in, in the realm of, of general TGN enthusiasm. Um, but I do think that they're, they're noteworthy and I was very excited by a handful of them. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I think AP also is one of those brands that occupies two ends of the watch enthusiast spectrum. On the one hand, it's a very, it can be a very showy brand that is on the wrists of a lot of celebrities and athletes and shows up in the tabloids, et cetera. And then on the other hand, you have stuff like you've just talked about. And I wouldn't be surprised if we have a number of TGN listeners that have APS that are just kind of quiet about it. Oh, sure. That's great. I mean, I'd love to see actually more pop up in our risk check, uh, channel on, on Slack. I just think they're beautiful watches. They're definitely something to be admired. They're just, they're so cool. Yeah. Yeah, what a privilege to go see that. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah, absolutely. Huge thank you to AP and a treat to get there and to see that and to be able to talk with some people about it and that sort of thing. And for me, it just always confirms like, no, no brand makes every watch where you're gonna love it, but they might make a couple that you can be really excited about and maybe one day there's one that you can have. If I could eventually, we've talked about this a ton, but eventually someday own something like an offshore diver, I'd be super pumped. So that's the reason I'm interested in this ceramic beast or that sort of thing, you know. I'm a huge fan of the brand and I understand that that's, you know, very much going to remain an intellectual fan versus a more practical one for their bottom line or my wallet. But yeah, I'm a fan nonetheless and it was a good trip and a treat to be back in Switzerland and a treat to be back home. Yeah. So how about you? You want to walk us through some ice diving? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, talk about switching gears. This is an absolute non sequitur. I think we did a whole episode about it last year after I did it. So I, I don't need to go into all the details about how it's done. We can link back to that. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Hit the show notes when I did it in late January last year. But, um, this year was particularly fun because there were actually more friends involved and it was really fun to meet and spend time with, with some TGN guys. Uh, Matt Ludbigson was there. Joseph Kang was there. Nice. Uh, kind of in support. Uh, they, they, you know, stood by me the whole, uh, the whole frigid day. Uh, Gashani was there, of course, my mom showed up, she, she made the trip across the ice and watched a bit of it. And then one of our, our listeners actually took part in it. Uh, Jeff from Wisconsin drove over for the, for the weekend and he, he took the ice diving certification class and we got to hang out a little bit on the ice. Uh, so that w it, it made it all the more fun. And I think what's cool is, so this was the North American ice diving festival and it was put on by a local shop, Midwest, uh, diving. And they did a good job under some very trying conditions. And I'm not just referring to the weather. They, we've had some weird, a weird winter where we've had a lot of snow and that's created weird ice conditions on the lakes. And so at the last minute they had to actually move venues and move to a different lake, which created a lot of, a lot of headaches because they had to get new permits and kind of rearrange the logistics for it. This was just a one day event, which seemed like a lot of work for one day, but next year they're planning a two and a half day event. Um, including a night dive on the, on the kind of the middle night of the, of the festival where they're going to drill holes in the ice and drop some, some led lights in, uh, to kind of guide you underwater. It's pretty cool, which I think it'd be pretty wild. You know, there were, there were some kind of cool equipment vendors and, and, and food vendors and, and, and people there to kind of hang out and check out. Um, but yeah, it was. you know, all that aside, it was, it was a cold day. I remember, you know, we had such a warm week leading up to it and then the bottom just dropped out and I woke up on Saturday morning and it was kind of breezy and it was gosh, minus I would say 15 centigrade. So it was like five degrees Fahrenheit, you know, just properly cold, cold day. And I got out to, to the lake at about eight 30 and, and you know, we had to kind of unload our gear and get it all set and then in past years when I've done ice diving, like you can drive your vehicle out onto the frozen lake and park somewhat near the hole where you're diving. This time due to the ice conditions, we all parked in a parking lot near the boat launch and then they used ATVs to kind of shuttle our gear out to the, out to the various holes. They had, what was it? Seven holes that they had cut in the ice for the different groups. They had like a hundred or more divers in the water that day. Wow. Okay. And so they kind of set you up by, by hold color. I had the orange hole. I think Jeff was at a green hole. And so they'd kind of shuttle all of your gear outside a big duffel with my dry suit and dive gear. And then my tank and my BC and regulator were all set up and they, they hauled that out there. You know, we had to kind of walk out across the ice. It was, they said it was 250 yards. It felt like a lot longer than that. Maybe it was the wind. But when we got out there, we had to, you know, there were guys with chainsaws cutting the triangular hole. And then we had these, um, kind of ice fishing tents that could hold, you know, several people, um, and we put a heater inside to kind of give some semblance of warmth so that when you're changing, uh, you could, you could go in there and warm up a bit. I think, you know, it's funny when I tell people about the day and they, you know, I post photos or talk to people about it, they're, they always think, how can this possibly be fun? You know, I mean it was hours of hours of work and my dive was, it was less than 15 minutes long and I guess what I've come to realize is it really is about the whole day. It's like, it's absolutely, it's a fun day out. Like the entire day becomes the adventure. And I think I've really grown to, to enjoy the satisfaction you get from, um, there's a certain smugness you get from carrying out something successfully like this, where you, you, you have the right clothes, you have the right gear. Things don't necessarily go wrong. You make some friends and you've got good stories to tell. And I felt like this was that kind of day because you know, aside from, from Matt and Joseph and Jeff and Gish and you know, everybody else that I met there, nothing malfunctioned on, on, on my kit. And I really didn't get that terribly cold. I was standing around a lot on top of the ice while other people were diving. And yeah. Um, I figure it's gotta be colder up top, right? Very much. I mean, the water is, you know, by definition it's above freezing. So it's, you know, zero or above centigrade or, you know, 33, 34 degrees. I think my computer said 35 for water temperature, but on top of the ice, it's, you know, it's five degrees Fahrenheit. And so for that, I, I, I pulled out all my great, you know, cold weather clothes that I'm always looking for excuses to wear. So that was, you know, down pants, wool base layer. I've got that, uh, that great eight 50, And then those, those leather chopper mitts that I got at a hardware store, I had, you know, some, some boots for, from bogs with a couple of pairs of wool socks on. And I was, I was pretty toasty for the most part. And that's how I spent most of my day, you know, helping people in and out of the water. Everybody needs help. It's very much a team effort. I think the biggest issue that, that people face when the weather is that cold, when the air temperature is that cold is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, free flow from, from the regulators. And, and what really causes that isn't so much the, it isn't the water temperature actually, because once you get in the water, they tend to do okay. It's the, um, it's the fact that when you open the valve on your tank, uh, and you start breathing and, and purging your regulator, adding air to a BC on top of the ice, um, that compressed air in the tank undergoes this rapid decompression as it goes into the hoses. And then that causes ice crystals to form. inside the valves and makes them stick open. And so there's, there's certain kind of techniques that, that are best practices that you do that, you know, you just, you simply do not breathe from your regulator or push any buttons until you're underwater. Um, which can be a little disconcerting, but it's, it's a lot better than, you know, hearing your tank hissing, you know, while you're waiting to jump in for a dive. And so a lot of time is spent, um, with a big kettle of water that's, that's bubbling over, over a kerosene stove. that you then pour onto regulators that are hissing to kind of get them to warm up and unfreeze. And so, you know, it's just a lot of people helping other people get in and out of gear and thought they're frozen hands and they're frozen gear. And I don't know, it's kind of what we talk about with, with, um, with mountaineering or, you know, hike in bad weather or, you know, sailing disasters or, or, you know, scary downhill ski runs or whatever. It's, over the years, I've been fascinated by stories of adventure. So often involved tales of, of great misery and, and of harsh conditions and things going wrong. And yet we'd love to do this stuff. We love to tell these stories. And I mean, if everything went right, I'm not sure that, that we'd all be interested in doing stuff like this. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. There's like that, that joke I've said in the past to you, like, Oh, if it was, if it was easy, it probably wouldn't be worth doing. Yeah. I think that's what we, what we said about Baker and yeah. Rainier. Yeah. And then I guess the other ones like if you allow me to quote one of my most favorite movies, the action is the juice. Yeah, totally. It is. Yeah, it's not just the dive. I mean, if you dive in the Caribbean, yeah, you just want to be able to that's just spend all the time getting getting the water out that that's, you know, that's clicking around in the park. That's a picnic. Yeah, exactly. But this is this is definitely, you know, the the diving equivalent of summiting a mountain or right. Yeah, exploring a cave or something like that. Yeah, it takes a lot and It's all of it is the experience. |
| Jason Heaton | When I finally got in the water, um, you know, at almost two in the afternoon. So we're, you know, I got there at eight 30 in the morning and, and by the time I got in the water, I was, I was diving with one other guy. We were tethered to a rope that is then anchored with an ice screw on the ice. And then it's held by a tender who's standing on the, on the surface, uh, kind of keeping track of you. Um, you know, by the, by this time it had gotten so silted up from so many divers, cause the water's only about 10 meters, you know, 30 feet deep. Um, under the ice at this point in the lake and, and with all those divers going in and out of the water, it got pretty silted up, pretty, pretty churned up. And so visibility was, I think the worst I've ever dived in. I mean, it was almost zero. Like our, the rope connecting me to my partner was six feet across, you know, maybe my height across and, and if it was fully extended, like I couldn't see him. And so it was, it was tough going and, and it was. the tether that we were on was 75 feet. So I kind of just was swimming. I was leading the dive and I was just sort of swimming along and we kind of looked at each other like, you know, shrugged our shoulders like I can't see a thing. So I just, I just swam. I just kind of swam kind of looking for some clarity and it was sort of weird because the silt would part ways and it was sort of this weird other worldly clouds that we were swimming through. And the only way to orient ourselves was to look straight up because you could see the light coming through the ice above and kind of our bubbles dancing around in the underside of the ice. And so that was really the only place that we could see anything. And so our dive was short and we reached the end of our tether and I got, I got tugs on the line from our tender and it was like, okay, you know, let's go back. So he reeled us in and we popped out of the hole and that was kind of the end of it. And then at that point, like immediately when you get out of the, out of the water, because it's so cold, the air temperature that, you know, you, head to toe, you're just frozen. Like your suit goes stiff. Your BC goes stiff. Everything is crusted with frost, but at that point it doesn't matter. You know, you just sort of get out of it. And I changed back into my clothes and that was near the end of the day. We went and watched Jeff, uh, get ready for his dives and, uh, got a cup of tea. And then, and then Gish and I went out for, for beers with Matt at a pub in downtown white bear Lake and had a good time telling the stories. And it was a, it was a good day all around. So I, I, I already can't wait for next year. And I've been kind of, talking it up on the Slack group and with some friends and, you know, sounds like we might get a good, maybe we'll get a good turnout next year. Hopefully a little bit warmer conditions, but yeah, good time. |
| Blake Buettner | That's awesome, man. Yeah. Super. Yeah. I'm glad that I'm not surprised that, you know, I was kind of wondering like, well, how are you going to warm up? And I thought, yeah, tea and beer makes more sense than maybe I can imagine you being a big fan of like a cup of hot chocolate or something with some marshmallows floating at the top. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, there's some business opportunities there. I thought, you know, they really should have had, there was actually a dive, a dive uh, shop from of all places, Sri Lanka. I mean, talk about coincidences actually exhibiting, exhibiting in the tent. And it's mainly because there was a guy who's, who's from Sri Lanka, who's studying at a local university here who happened to have a connection with them. And I think they just said, Hey, if you're going to be there, do you want to, you know, kind of serve tea and hand out some flyers? That's, that's what he did. It wasn't, wasn't a big display by any means, but we got to chat with him a bit and uh, and he was providing a, tea bags and hot water. So that was kind of fun. But I, I mean, I'm telling you, you know, somebody had a, had a little hot cocoa stand or a little, little food truck or something. I'm sure they do some booming business there. Imagine a nice bowl of soup or something. Hot soup. Oh man. Chili. Give me some bisque. |
| Blake Buettner | Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know what to do next year. Sort ourselves out a really good lobster bisque recipe and get down there. Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. Boy, I just fall asleep on the ice. I love it. All right. You want to get into some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. I'll, I'll, I'll go first. Cause it's a good segue. I, I finally watched a movie on Netflix that had been recommended to us, uh, by a couple of listeners and it would always popped up in my Netflix suggestions. And, um, it's a, it's a very short film. It's a documentary called hold your breath, the ice dive. And it's a pretty remarkable story about, um, a woman from Finland who sets out to, to set the world record for talk about a niche um, discipline. It is breath hold. I don't have to call it diving, swimming under a frozen lake, like across a distance. And her goal is initially was to do better than 50 meters, which was her own record. She ends up aiming for over a hundred meters, um, from one hole in the ice to another hole under the ice. And she's doing it in a swimsuit in early March in Northern Finland, uh, on a frozen lake. And this is around the time of the pandemic. So that kind of throws a wrench in her plans to a certain degree. You'll have to watch the movie. It's, it's, it's literally like a 40 minute movie. So it's, it's very short, but that makes it very easy to watch. Um, really satisfying, really, really well filmed. Um, actually one of the guys who was the director of underwater photography was a guy I met on a Tudor trip, a diving trip, uh, years ago, uh, Jean Charles grand John, he runs a company called blue earth and he handled all the underwater footage and it was really, really well done. Um, all the under ice stuff and it really lent itself to some dramatic footage and much clearer water than, than we had, uh, diving last weekend. So, um, check it out. It's a, it's a, it's a great movie. Um, a good one to watch before winter ends. I think, uh, it's called hold your breath, the ice dive on Netflix. |
| Blake Buettner | That's awesome. That sounds, uh, sounds great. And, uh, maybe a little bit scary. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it totally is. Yeah. I can't imagine. Yeah. |
| Blake Buettner | What do you, what do you have? So yeah, mine this week is actually kind of a weird one. I've had it on my list of things to talk about in final notes for a while. It's a little bit boring, I guess, but I do think that if you think about the last like maybe six months, the return to travel, that sort of thing for me, probably the best little bit of kit that I've added to the workload. is the second generation of the Apple AirPods Pro. So that's my final notes today, is a little bit of a mini review, a mini tech review for a product that I really hemmed and hawed on, because I own the first generation of the Pros. Yeah. And then I saw this one, I was like, you know, a bunch of improvements, do I really wanna spend the money? And man, am I happy I spent the money. I used to travel with the big Sonys. Yeah. If I wanted to have great noise canceling and good sound quality and comfort, now I get five hours. five to six hours from one charge. Wow. And they recharge very quickly. So like if I stop to or switch to a wired, a simple like earbud style headset for 20 minutes of my movie during dinner or whatever, I can switch back to the air pods and I, you know, I guess you lose the ability to hardwire into say a flight, but they're just so small. They're right with you. The audio quality is really good for what they are, but mostly it's the battery life. The quality of the sound canceling, the sound counseling is like incredible. I can't hear my water rower. I can't hear any environmental sound. They're very comfortable. They work in the same way as the last ones. We could have one in, but not both. Oh, yeah. So they work in a mono mode, so I could sleep with whatever the high side of the non pillow side ear is. I'll put it in. And I wanted to kind of get them into... And I wanted to have these as kind of my spend for the gift guide, but they're a little bit more expensive than that. They're not inexpensive as far as... Like decent headphones, I think maybe $30, $40. You buy a pair of Sennheisers, they've got wires and a mic and but now you've got phones that don't have that plug like a headphone jack anymore, right? And wireless is really nice. I really am really super, super impressed by these. I liked the old ones fine. These ones I think are absolutely worth like if you live with them in like I do, I take phone calls all day. I constantly have podcasts going. I like to have the ability to, you know, not even be able to hear my footsteps if I go for a walk, if that's what I want. And sometimes I just run these just with the noise canceling with like with no nothing coming through them. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that is nice. That's a guilty pleasure. I'd like to do that too. Yeah. |
| Blake Buettner | Just a bit of a calming thing. It also kind of communicates to people around you that like you're focused on something else. Yeah. Yeah. So they're a little bit more expensive than we might've done for a gift guide, but I'm just throwing it out there that if either, if you were waiting, you didn't bother the, by the first gen, or if you've managed to destroy yours or, or lose one or whatever, the, the combination of the new battery life. So six hours of playback and 30 hours is what you have in the charger. And they charge so quickly in the charger that you just take a little break. Yeah. Use a bathroom, whatever. I'm not taking my AirPods in the bathroom. They don't always stay in. Yeah. So that's not happening. And then they've got a wireless charger included. The charger now has the ability to emit a sound. So if you lose them, you use the Find My app and they make a little siren. Oh, yeah. The sound quality is amazing. The way they integrate with the rest of the product, if you're doing the phone, the laptop at the same time, you can really bounce. These ones are a lot faster or more intuitive for like I'm going to take a phone call, but I'm going to take my phone call on my phone, and it just kind of makes the jump a little bit easier. They seem a little bit smarter, a little bit higher end than than the original offering. And I just like for me, like noise canceling comes down to almost like a mental health thing. Yeah, I don't know how you travel without these. I definitely feel very strongly that whether you went the Apple route or somewhere else, whatever for you, noise canceling is just such a luxury. Yeah, that allows to make a lot of other scenarios a lot more comfortable. And like I said, I live with these things and they're in pretty much all day. I'm constantly like taking them out just to give them a little top up in the charger or or that sort of thing. I like that these ones are also IPX four resistance, so they're absolutely something you could wear at the gym as far as sweat and that sort of thing. So yeah, a good product made even better. And I think if you're on the fence and it's not just the big battery that you can actually do volume control from touching the ear and that sort of thing. So there's there's a few updates it's worth looking into. I'm a huge fan of the originals pros and somehow they made them pretty much better in every aspect with a gen two. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I've got the, I've got the first gen I'm wearing right now. And I even remember when I upgraded obviously from the other AirPods, which was just such a quantum leap. So I've been curious about like what level of iteration the second gen has been and you've been singing their praises for a while now. And yeah, well I'm curious what you've done with, with your first generation set. Do you keep them like by the bed and use them? Those are the ones I sleep with. Yeah. |
| Blake Buettner | They are. Okay. Yeah. Or in a scenario where I'm going all day, like if I'm editing the pod and I took this call on the pod and then I have a podcast going in the rest or I'm switching between, then it's just they're my backup. I traveled with both. That way, if something came up, terrible layover or whatever, I could just... That's cool. At least have something to listen to, some music to make it a bit easier, the podcast, the rest of it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and to be clear, I bought these with my own money. Apple has loaned me the Apple watch, that sort of thing. They didn't give me this. They didn't give me my iPad, which I spoke about earlier. I bought all those at normal retail price. This is a natural review of a product I really like, which sometimes we use final notes for. So that's the, yeah, AirPods Pro second generation. Not sure why they couldn't give it a slicker name than that, but whatever. It feels confusing for me. I've talked to people and they're like, I have AirPods Pros, and I'm like, yeah, but there's a new one. They're like, oh, I only bought mine like three months ago. I'm like, yeah, no, there's a new one. It's called the second generation. They didn't call them the AirPod Pro 2s or something like that. Yeah, yeah. A little weird, but that's it. Like I said, I love them. I use them all the time. |
| Jason Heaton | Nice. Well, people can use them and watch Hold Your Breath, The Ice Dive. Our two final notes are complimentary today. I love it, for sure. All right. Well, that wraps a kind of an eclectic episode. We've talked about ice diving, new APs, real high-end watches, a movie and some Apple stuff. Yeah. Very different wrist checks. So yeah, it was quite a, quite a varied episode. I hope people, uh, people like it. And as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN sign NATO and get on our Slack, please visit TheGrayNATO.com. Music throughout a siesta by Jazar via the Free Music Archive. |
| Blake Buettner | And for the end of dry January, we leave you with this quote from one of my absolute faves, W.C. Fields, who said, Drown in a cold vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting? |