Episode 40 - What is a Quartz Movement, Anyway?
Published on Wed, 31 Jul 2019 22:16:00 -0700
Synopsis
The hosts discuss quartz watch movements in depth, covering topics like the history and development of quartz technology, different thermal compensation methods used by various brands, the technological innovations behind ultra-precise movements like the Longines VHP and Spring Drive, and the key differences between Swiss and Japanese quartz movements. They also touch on more affordable yet still accurate quartz options. The overall takeaway is that while advanced quartz movements offer incredible precision, even basic quartz movements provide excellent timekeeping at a low cost, so collectors shouldn't obsess too much over the specifics when choosing a quartz watch.
Links
Transcript
| Speaker | |
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| Andrew | Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is the 40 in 20 podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, other things we like. Everett, how are you? |
| Everett | I'm great. I'm great. It's Sunday morning. I have had about seven pots of coffee. |
| Unknown | Only? |
| Andrew | Only seven. Well, we can probably power through two more while I'm here. |
| Everett | I'm good, man. have been nerding out. Yes. Like in an incredible way. This is the this is the probably going to be the nerdiest episode we've ever had. And I did not realize the magnitude of the rabbit holes that would be involved in preparing for this episode. I was up until I think two o'clock last night. Just I mean, not necessarily transfixed, but just sort of like chasing down obsessed chasing down one rabbit hole after another so i'm a little the reason i've had seven pots of coffee is because i was a little i mean both intrigued but also sort of really trying to put a button on our topic for today's show so i'm feeling a little i'm feeling a little like strung out and when you get that excited about a topic as tired as you are you also get well not just you but we people get oddly amped about it i know just yeah |
| Andrew | So I had a similar experience such that when I went to bed last night, not at two, but at a more reasonable time, um, and I was so tired. So this morning I woke up, it was light out. I threw my blankets off, looked at my phone and I'm on this group chat that, that tends to yield a lot of text messages. So I looked at my phone cause I was convinced it was Monday and on Monday I have to be out of the house before the sun is up. I know this. So I saw a bunch of text messages. The sun was out, didn't even look at the time, raced from bed, started throwing on my clothes and Sam was sleeping on the couch, uh, cause she got up early with the baby, the kid. Uh, and so she was back asleep on the couch and she's like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm so late for work. Why didn't you wake me up? She's like, it's Sunday, baby. I was like, Oh, it's Sunday. And I went and got back in bed for another hour. |
| Everett | Well, you texted me. It's I think six this morning. And I think I woke up pretty early, but you, I woke up to multiple text messages from you. |
| Andrew | I have no memory of doing that. That was in a sleepy stupor. I was still trying to figure out what was happening. I was so disoriented. I don't do that very often, but when I do, it throws off my morning. So I got up a little bit later, reset, watched some TV, had a couple pots of coffee, getting going. And I followed up on some work on this episode just to try to tidy up what I was doing. And yeah, it was a weird way to start my day, but now we're good. Now we've got coffee, we've got dew, we've got delicious heavy whipped cream. This is like drinking a cocktail. |
| Everett | Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I, you know, I've got one of these, um, one of these milk frothers. It's a super cheap thing you pick up off of Amazon. It's 20 bucks, but it heats the cream and then, and then froths it. |
| Unknown | Creme. |
| Everett | Creme. Uh, it's not as good as a, as a steamer. Or a wand, yeah. You know, a wand. Yeah, that's right. That you'd have on a commercial espresso machine. But those things are, are pretty expensive for home use. I mean, I think you're in the, hundreds of dollars to get one that actually functions. But for a close second, this thing's 20 bucks on Amazon, and it makes this rich, creamy... I mean, it's also heavy whipping cream, so let's be serious here. |
| Andrew | And it's heavy whipping cream. I had an espresso machine that had a wand, and basically all it gave you was hot, watery milk. |
| Everett | Yeah. Yeah, to do that right, it takes some technology. So I don't know what the technology is. I don't really care. I just know that I looked at them, It's not related to quartz movements. So I don't care. Yeah. Well, no, I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't researching quartz movements at the time. I was just trying to do a thing where I didn't end up spending $400 on a milk frother. So because I drink my coffee black by and large. Yeah, I do. Except when I put a little more dew in it. |
| Andrew | And then I want that. Yeah, you got to get some more creamy because it's got such a good woody flavor and you combine that with the creaminess. Y'all, if you're not doing this every Sunday morning, what are you doing with your life? |
| Everett | What are you doing? |
| Andrew | What are you doing? First up, I have to address an iTunes review that we have. It is from Stinging Ace. |
| Everett | Yeah. Have you read it? I have. |
| Andrew | Well, what I want to address is that he posed a question. How do we connect with the hosts? So Stinging Ace hit us up on Instagram. You're likely going to be talking to Everett because I don't, I don't do Instagram very good or really any social media very good. Everett does. Connect with us that way or shoot us an email. We've got an email address. |
| Everett | 40and20blog at gmail.com. 40and20blog at gmail.com. At the time we made that email address, I assumed there would be a blog that went with it. Yeah. |
| Andrew | As it turns out, we're just, just taking pictures and talking shit. |
| Everett | So the, yeah, no, for sure. The two, the, the single best way to get ahold of us is via Instagram. No doubt about it. Um, but yeah, 40and20blog at gmail.com. We check that multiple times per week. But there will be some delay. I mean, I'm on it. I'm on the gram 20 hours or so a day, 20 hours. That's right. Um, you know, so if you, you know, that's by far the quickest, most direct way to get ahold of us. I did look up stinging ace. I wasn't able to find an Instagram handle, but that appeared to be the same guy. So, uh, we did try to reach out to you. There's no, as far as I know, there's no functionality for me to comment on that iTunes post. So. Yeah, 40and20blog at gmail.com or just at 40and20 on Instagram. That's going to be your best bet all the time. |
| Andrew | Yep. Hit us up. Thanks for reaching out. |
| Everett | I'm glad to have you. Slide into the DMs. One other thing he noted. Is that a euphemism? Yeah. Okay. One other thing he noted, he took umbrage with our review of Wheel of Time and said, You guys, it gets slow in the middle, but stick with it. Okay, I'm sure that's right. Sorry about that. If you know what Wheel of Time is, then you know what I'm talking about. |
| Andrew | And if not, cosign on his complaint. Good Lord. Let us know. |
| Everett | So we're talking about quartz watches. We're talking about watches. |
| Andrew | We are. |
| Everett | Quartz watches. |
| Andrew | We are. And we're diving right into it because as you might have guessed from Everett's intro, this is a heavy topic. This is a big topic. This is more than likely than not going to be our densest topic, but we're going to keep it fun. |
| Everett | I hope we can keep it fun because this shit is not fun. Yeah, it is. It's fun. Yeah, no, you're right. It's fun, but it was kind of not. I mean, it was kind of intense to research for this. I felt more intense than I've ever felt before. Researching for a show. |
| Andrew | Those stakes are high. We have a thousand Instagram followers, everyone. And in light of our thousand Instagram followers, we have a special surprise. We still have to work out the final details on it, and we will update you. via Instagram in the next week or so on what we're going to do to celebrate our thousand Instagram followers. |
| Everett | That was a double snap. |
| Andrew | Yeah. What up? What up? Thank you for all your engagement. Please keep engaging with us. I imagine this was a listener idea. Our quartz movements. |
| Everett | Yeah, no, it wasn't. It was just something that sort of came to me because you failed to do your job and you hit me up and said, what are we going to talk about? |
| Andrew | Well, I had some ideas, but I like to solicit your input, but keep sending us ideas. We were texting last night and our goal is to not have to come up with any show ideas of our own. So that's my personal goal because then I can do absolutely minimal effort. But also we like engaging with you guys. We like answering the questions that you have because they're likely questions that we have because most of you are far smarter than we are. |
| Everett | know more about this than we do so if you've got a question it's certainly a question that we didn't even know we had yeah that's right that's right and we've got some good recommendations for shows you know it's one of those things where you have to sort of um you have to become inspired so it's not just that the idea is good but that you have to also be inspired by the idea you know we've got a recommendation right now out there a good recommendation to do swedish watch brands And I've yet to be inspired by that. |
| Andrew | I've brought it up a couple times. |
| Everett | I think we should do it. We'll do it eventually. We have not done it yet. |
| Andrew | No, not yet. But it's on the horizon. So shall we get into the main topic? |
| Everett | Dude, let's do it. Let's. Let's do it. So I think that it's maybe important before we start to talk about what a quartz watch is to just sort of really quick bullet point of the history of a watch movement. What is a watch movement? How does it work? Do it. Do me. So, so a watch is just a measure of time based on a known oscillation frequency. Any, any sort of clock is a measure of time based on a known oscillation frequency. So, you know, whether that's a pendulum based grandfather clock. |
| Andrew | Or a candle that burns at a uniform rate. |
| Everett | Well, yeah, I suppose you could do that. Maybe the least precise method I've heard. And so it's a capturing of that known oscillation. So, you know, the pendulum or the foliot, I think that's how you pronounce that word, perhaps folio. I wouldn't know how else to say it. But these sort of predecessors to the modern, I say modern with finger quilts in the air, hairspring, balance spring, escapement, mechanical movement, the predecessors to these relied on heavy weights. to move an oscillator or to regulate an oscillator and so you know if you can imagine a pendulum clock on a on your wrist is going to be highly susceptible to movement and frankly it's not going to work at all it needs gravity and putting those things on boats was hugely problematic for very obvious reasons for very obvious reasons yeah and it was it was actually navigation and boats that drove the development of the hairspring, the balance spring system, to instead of swing something or rely on gravity to pull something down at a constant rate, rather to use the winding of that balance spring and the weighted wheel, the weighted momentum of that wheel to regulate time pieces. because of the 360 degree movement, they were able to capture more accuracy with positional variance and gravitational variance. |
| Andrew | Because it's relying on the release of tension held by a spring or other material to uniformly release energy. |
| Everett | And it's a 360 degree rotation, right? So you're spreading that rotation and instead of instead of 180 degrees or 90 or whatever that winds up being, instead of limiting your rotation to A, to being dependent on gravity, and B, to being a fixed part of a circle, you're spreading it out over the whole circle. So now instead of being one-dimensional, you're, I guess, two-dimensional, perhaps. And maybe that's inaccurate, but I think |
| Andrew | I think that's a good way to describe it. You're working in a multiple axis as opposed to just one. |
| Everett | That's right. And so all of a sudden, all of a sudden we've got these incredibly accurate devices, but there's problems with the hairspring, with the balance spring system. In particular, positional variance, isochronism. I think that's how you pronounce that word. It's a word I've seen written a hundred times, but never heard anyone say it out loud besides myself. |
| Andrew | because it would be weird to hear people say that word out loud with any kind of regularity. |
| Everett | Isochronism is the difference in... Isochronism? Pulsation. Isochronism. Yeah. Isochronism is the difference in positional variance depending on the amount of wind you have. So, fully wound versus, you know, 30% wound, you're going to have a difference in your oscillation rate. And that's going to affect your timekeeping abilities. Temperature is a huge one. Mm-hmm. Hairsprings were made out of metal. Metal is incredibly susceptible to temperature variation. Mm-hmm. Uh, positional variance, gravity, all of that stuff, all of that stuff affects a mechanical movement in a pretty incredible way. |
| Andrew | Moisture, magnetism, the list goes on, people. |
| Everett | That's right. That's right. So, sometime in the 40s, 50s-ish, This company, this American company, killer American company called Bulova says, well, what if we use a higher beat rate? What if we use a tuning fork, a tuning fork that is going to vibrate instead of a relatively slow 28, eight, uh, we'll, we'll do a faster vibration, 362 Hertz. And, and that is going to get rid of some of these problems. And it did boom, boom. So Bulova changes the world. As we've heard multiple times, Bulova changes the world with this tuning fork movement. Now, if you've ever heard one of these old Bulova accurace movements, you perhaps have heard that, they hum. They hum because it's a very slow or relatively slow oscillation rate. |
| Andrew | I want one so bad. I know. I love listening to watch movements. I'm not a huge fan of listening to The SNK, the whoosh, whoosh, not a big fan of that. I like it. I like it. It's a little loud for me, but I love listening to movements and listening to a movement hum would be one of the most pleasing experiences of my life. |
| Everett | Yeah. No, you know, when I had, uh, when I had that, I, I built that strap for that old Acuras, that vintage Acuras. |
| Andrew | We had the chance. |
| Everett | Yeah, that's right. It was just a very cool movement, but I didn't become intrigued by the movement until just after we did that episode and I feel like kind of missed out on some of the neatness. Probably, yeah. So that tuning fork, that metal tuning fork, has some of the same issues, but you gain some intrinsic stability. Stability by way of the beat rate, by way of the by way of the frequency right so so you increase that frequency and all of a sudden you're less susceptible to gravity you're less susceptible to positional variance and you're less susceptible to isochronism because you're applying voltage at a constant rate to that tuning fork and making it shift so here's what i want to talk about a little bit i want to talk about why quartz is better so we we know we have the tuning fork yep Sometime in the 60s, a couple of companies discovered quartz movements. And in particular, I think Seiko. Seiko is among one of the industry leaders. And Seiko becomes involved in athletics and timing of sports events. And they eventually, I think, sponsored the Olympics. |
| Andrew | The year quartz was released. They sponsored the Olympics. |
| Everett | And so they start releasing, at that time, clocks. And at the time they did it, I think they made a clock that was something like a quartz movement for a clock that was something like one four hundredth the size of the previous quartz movement. That's tiny. It's little, right? |
| Andrew | So they take this thing that you- It's like the relative difference between your computer and the first computer. |
| Everett | Yeah, that's right. That's right. So all of a sudden they changed the world and they discovered that if you take a crystal, a quartz crystal- Which by the way, they grow their own. |
| Andrew | Yeah, a lot of- which is crazy to me. I had in my head, even though I knew this, I had in my head that quartz was still like a mined resource. You got guys with dirt all over their face. Yeah, and I don't know why I was thinking that because I know that crystals grow and I know they can be grown, but for some reason I still had in my head these dudes who have the market cornered on watch quartz just mining in deep earth pits. I don't know why, but I'm way too old to to still have thought that but just for the record to in the last couple days is when it occurred to me that no they grow they grow quartz crystals for watch purposes. Yeah that's right. You're welcome everyone. |
| Everett | That's right. So so it's all of a sudden now we've got this new technology Seiko's made quartz crystals and and they weren't the only ones right this people knew here we are we're on the verge of something great and so all of a sudden now we have a crystal that vibrates at 32 kilohertz or specifically 32,768 beats per second. Which is a very specific number and do you know why that number is what it is? |
| Andrew | I don't know why. I mean, I understand it's because of the density and of the chemical makeup of the crystal that when an electric charge is introduced to it, it oscillates at a uniform rate. I don't know why that happens, but I understand the overarching... So there's really a combination of two reasons. |
| Everett | And I watched a YouTube video about this where the fellow, we'll link to this, but where the fellow says, those of you who know your factors of two will recognize that this is two to the 15th power. And I thought, who the fuck? |
| Andrew | Who, yeah, I'm the asshole here. |
| Everett | Uh, so this is two to 15th power. The first reason is we need in order to make this movement inaudible, we need to get over 20,000 kilohertz or 20 kilohertz, 20,000 Hertz. Um, because up to 20,000 it's audible. So, so our 400 or 362 Hertz. Accuracy movement, when you put it up to your ear, you hear that. |
| Andrew | And that's the quartz oscillating. |
| Everett | You can, yes. Interesting. At a resonant frequency. That is its natural resonant frequency. And it makes a tone, a very pure tone. Up to 20,000, that's audible to the human ear. Above that, we can't hear it anymore. Dogs maybe, but not us. Oh. 32,768 beats per second is the first power of two. oscillation so it's 2 to the 15th power and it's the first one over 20,000 so they've taken the the first power of two oscillations so if you take one if you take one and and multiply it as a power of two 15 times uh math people i'm sorry i'm butchering this uh but but essentially 2 to the 15th power now the reason it has to be a power of two is because by a system of four 14 step-downs, 2 to the power of 15, 14 flip-flops. They reduce that number by half until you get to 1 beat per second. So they step it down 14 times until they get 1 beat per second. It's gotta be a power of 2 or you don't ever get to 1. That's my understanding. |
| Andrew | The glazed look you're witnessing is... It's tangible. Deep thought. That makes sense. I think I understand. |
| Everett | So all of a sudden now we're moving something very fast. You thought 362 was fast. Hold up. We're going to go really fast. We're going to go so fast that it's going to be virtually unaffected by gravity, by isochronism, by positional variance, and by temperature. Virtually unaffected by temperature. In fact, quartz crystals naturally, inherently very resistant to temperature. So we go from steel, which is all over the place, as you know, with temperature, to quartz crystals. So the second a quartz movement is invented, we have something that can operate at the same rate of accuracy per year, or per month, excuse me, per month, that mechanical movements could do per day. I think that quartz crystals wear out. Well, they do. They do wear out. They do wear out, but the quartz crystal is going to last a lot longer than all the electrical components. Than the circuitry. That's right. Um, so yeah, this is big already. The very first quartz movement is like, uh, several orders of magnitude, more resistant to all of the external and intrinsic stability issues that we had with mechanical movements. Questions, comments, concern. I've taken over and I apologize. I think you'll have your opportunity later. |
| Andrew | No, I am about as on board with what just happened as you are. |
| Everett | So, we've got this quartz movement. Wonderful. Temperature, gravity, isochronism were virtually unaffected. However, temperature still winds up being the biggest factor. |
| Andrew | So we've got... Which is interesting when you think about all the things that, how stable quartz is, that they were so focused on refining the process that a material that is virtually unaffected by temperature, that's their focus. |
| Everett | Yeah, that's right. That's right. |
| Andrew | How good is this movement already that they're worried about something that only kind of affects it. |
| Everett | And so we're talking about, we're talking about very accurate movements that in the 70s, 80s and 90s are getting as good as 20 seconds per day with anecdotal variation that that's even better than that. So not 20 seconds per day, 20 seconds per year. So even with full, with un-thermal compensated quartz movements, we're super duper accurate. |
| Andrew | And an emerging technology. That's, that's the most impressive thing to me is an emerging technology that's still not fully understood. still not fully, fully throughout the market, still not adopted and, and pushed by everyone. We're dealing with the most efficient, the most accurate watches in the world. |
| Everett | That that's right. That's right. Super duper accurate, crazy accuracy, wonderful stuff. But us being human, we can do better. We know we can do better. |
| Andrew | We have to do better. And it makes sense that this technology primarily coming out of Japan, is focusing on getting better. Smaller, more accurate, mo' better. |
| Everett | Mo' better. |
| Andrew | And I think that's, that's, I mean, obviously the Japanese created the quartz watch and they were the reason for their quartz crisis, but I think the reason quartz was so effective and remains so effective is because that's so much of the identity of Japanese manufacturing. Smaller, better, faster, mo' better. |
| Everett | So before we move on to thermal compensation, can, can I, uh, can I make a point? |
| Andrew | I don't know. |
| Everett | I mean, it's, is it going to be a good point? I feel like it's my podcast a little bit. I mean, and yours equally mine and yours, but, but I feel like it's my podcast. So if I want to make a point, I should just do it. |
| Andrew | Maybe we are the co-hosts. Should you run it by me? Should we, should we take a stop? |
| Everett | I'm running it by you right now. |
| Andrew | Okay, let's do it. |
| Everett | Okay. So we, we tend to talk in binary, right? Um, we tend to talk about watch stuff in binary, right? So you've got mechanical, you've got quartz. And mechanical is mechanical and quartz is something different. It's electronic. It doesn't have a soul. You know, there's watches with souls and there's quartz watches. However, this is the point I'd like to make. |
| Andrew | You just gave the very sassy, waggy finger. |
| Everett | Waggy finger. This is waggy. I'm going to step out on a limb and say a quartz crystal oscillation is mechanical. A quartz crystal is a mechanical oscillation. You are whacking. So when you take a tuning fork, you whack it and it goes until it stops. And then you whack it again and it keeps doing it. And that's what, that's what Bulova did is they, they're whacking with an electrical signal, this tuning fork. That's what Bulova did. They were, they were whacking it. They were using an electromagnet to repel the tuning fork. And then also applying current to the electromagnet to add a constant rate, whack this thing. |
| Andrew | I don't think you're going that far out on a limb. I don't know that you're going on a limb at all. I think, I think the reason for the divide is important for definition in, in, in describing the type of, the type of motor. I mean, it's, it's a diesel conventional. |
| Everett | It is. |
| Andrew | It is an important distinction. But I do agree with you in trying to draw a similarity between a mechanical and a quartz movement in the sense that a quartz movement is mechanical in its own way. I mean, it's not in its own way. It's mechanical. It's a machine that is running. But I think that that line to be drawn is important because quartz watches are not soulless. |
| Everett | Well, I mean they are soulless. No, they're not. But in the same exact way that a mechanical watch is soulless. |
| Andrew | The quartz was grown like a human. Right. It was grown. Nothing in a mechanical watch is grown. |
| Everett | You're giving it organic properties. |
| Andrew | It has organic properties. It grew. Okay. |
| Everett | But I think... So you're arguing that a quartz watch has more soul. |
| Andrew | No, I'm arguing that they have soul. I think to say that a mechanical watch has more soul just because a person took a file and shaved down all these little pieces to fit it together and a quartz watch had a crystal grown. I just, I take issue with saying that quartz watches are soulless just because they're not typically as decorated a movement. You don't typically get exhibition case backs on quartz watches. You don't get to manually wind it or wind it with your wrist. Those are not reasons for it to not have a soul. The same amount of time and effort Has gone into quartz movements as has gone into mechanical movements in the development I don't see like not every not every mechanical movement that's out there right now Individually, yes, it's getting more attention from a person than a quartz movement quartz movements are angels with with dirty souls Yeah, they're brought down from heaven and dropped into your watch and will power it forever so We've got this crystal now. |
| Everett | We've got this crystal crystal crystal Awesome. So now we've got this crystal there. We're whacking, we're whacking it and making it vibrate. We're making it flex at 32,768 Hertz, Hertz, 32 K, uh, 32 kilohertz, which is just extremely accurate. And the other thing about a quartz crystal is it creates a tone. So now we've created a tone, a sine wave, if you will. And you know, oscillations, it's a resonant frequency. So it's the same function as a, as a trumpet, a trumpet, if you blow into a trumpet, it's got a natural resonant frequency. So you blow harder, you blow softer, you're getting that same. Sine wave the same wave in, in different, in different variations. Um, and, and a trumpet is going to also create harmonics. Oh, good word. And harmonics are the different tones you hear. So when you blow into a trumpet, you get a lot of harmonics. You blow into a flute also has a resonant frequency, but it's a lot more pure tone. A trumpet, lots of noises, lots of sine waves. |
| Andrew | And then you get some gargles from the spit. |
| Everett | A flute, you get fewer waves. It's a purer tone, right? A tuning fork, even more pure. We've got this. To the next level, we've turned it up to 11 or perhaps we've turned it up to 111 because all of a sudden we are very pure, very few harmonics, and we've got a crisp long lasting tone. So 32 kilohertz for a very long time. We don't have to whack it very hard. We don't have to whack it very often. That's where you apply your battery. You apply your battery in a regulated off and on. You vibrate that crystal, it spits out 32 kilohertz. We step that down 14 times till we've got a second per, a beat per second. Boom. Quartz movements. Still affected by, still affected by temperature. So what happens is we, we in the nineties start developing eighties and nineties, excuse me, start developing thermocompensation to get it better. 20 isn't good enough for me. I want five. COSC used to be C-O-S-C, uh, COSC, um, standard used to be 60 seconds. I think until 2001, they changed it. Now it needs to be 20 seconds per year, SPY and thermocompensated to be COSC certified quartz movement, 20 seconds and thermocompensated. And there's a bunch of ways people do this. One is you don't have a tuning fork crystal at all. You have an AT cut, a thing you can look it up. Don't ask me. With super fast oscillations, very, very fast oscillations. They go so fast that they create a, it's not thermal compensated. It's just much more accurate. But these crystals were outrageously expensive. Outrageous. Like today's dollars, you know, $80,000 watches, 60 to $80,000 watches. Worth it? Not worth it. Right? So Rolex also at the same time develops their Oysterquartz, which is not an AT cut. It's a tuning fork, but they use an analog frequency regulation. They regulate by way of an analog device that frequency to compensate. Kind of old technology. Not really great. Very cool. And you know if Rolex is going to make quartz movement, it's going to be beautiful. And it was discontinued in 2001. So good luck finding one. Then we come up with digital correction. So we use a digital thermistor, I think is what you call it, which takes the temperature, it's a thermometer, and applies that to your output to regulate it. So, oh, that's really hot. I'm going to change the, I'm going to, I'm going to adjust the output digitally. Becomes very accurate. This is great. All of these systems have some issues. In particular, you're relying on an external source. Seiko, then, once again, Seiko, our good friends, invent the twin quartz movement, which we've talked about before. Twin quartz solves this problem by taking two different frequency quartz crystals. They have a 32,000, just like everybody else. And then they have another frequency crystal, a higher frequency crystal. And it uses the delta between those crystals to tell it what the temperature variation is and to adjust the output digitally. |
| Andrew | So crazy that this is all happening inside a watch in real time. |
| Everett | In real time, right? Can you imagine? It's crazy. |
| Andrew | I'm trying to imagine. That's the issue. |
| Everett | It's like little, little tiny elves that are in a control room. |
| Andrew | All the, all the self diagnostics, all the self recalibration that occurs in a quartz watch or that can occur in a quartz watch. is so impressive to me. So impressive. Not just thermal compensation, but then you get, and we'll get into this when we get a little bit further, but the gear positioning detector in Longines VHP. Diagnostics, calibration, all happening in real time. |
| Everett | Well, and I think that that kind of sums up my sort of segment of the show, and I'll turn it over to you, and I'm sorry I've used up so much time. I'll turn it over to you at this point, but I want to give a shout out to an article called Thermal Compensation Methods and Movements. I think that this is an article by a fellow named Bruce Redding, and he was a former moderator, or I think former, there's a paren question mark, former moderator of the High Accuracy Quartz subforum on what you seek. Okay. Bruce Redding and George Palast? Palast? put together this article, it is incredible. And it's sort of been archived. But if you search, quote, thermocompensation, colon methods and movements, you'll find this article, and it's incredibly dense. And so I'm going to credit them. And they've credited four different websites and a lot of people, there's just not enough time, we'd be crediting people all day, I'm going to give them credit, go to them for the credit that they give. But the article is long and crazy and hard to read and really good. Really good. If you want to know more about this stuff. And with that, I'll let you take over. And it seems like you were going to start to talk about the VHP. Uh, and I think that'd be a wonderful place to start. Sort of. |
| Andrew | But first I want to talk a little bit about the differences between Japanese and Swiss courts movement. |
| Everett | Yeah, do it man. |
| Andrew | One of the things that's always kind of been a mystery to me is the, um, stories, the heritage behind Swiss movements. And I haven't ever really been, really been able to fully grasp why, right? I mean, I get Swiss watches are typically luxury watches. They're very well-made. They're more often than not, I mean, virtually works of art in within the watch world. So when the Swiss started dipping their toes into quartz watches, It raises some questions for me because quartz watches, though they're a work of scientific art, they're not necessarily the same craftsmanship work of art that you're going to get out of a mechanical watch, right? They're just by the nature of what a quartz watch is, right? |
| Everett | They're less reliant on the quality of craftsmanship that went into the metal pieces. |
| Andrew | Right. So by that nature, the question that kind of drove my My research was why is a Swiss quartz watch so much more expensive than a Japanese quartz watch? And why does it matter? We're working with virtually the same technology. They're all going in the same direction as trying to reach that five second per year threshold. And some of them achieved it in both Swiss and Japanese watchmaking. But what's the difference? What's really there that's different? Where I've kind of come to is, is breaking quartz watches down into, uh, I I'll, I'll say two categories. Repairable serviceable, not repairable serviceable. And the main component of that repairable serviceable or not repairable serviceable, repairable, repairable, repairable. I think that's fine. The main difference between those two categories is in composition of components, whether they're using plastic or metal, but then when you dive a little deeper, Even metal quartz movements, though they are repairable and serviceable, there's not a incentive to do so. |
| Everett | And the technology is developing faster than the incentive to replace. |
| Andrew | Right. Let's take your phone, for example. When you break your phone screen, do you replace it or do you just get a new phone? Well, I replace it, but... Yeah, well, we're a little bit different types of people, but like, so for me, for example, my, when my iPhone battery goes bad, I pay the 50 money and I get a new battery. Cause I don't need anything different about the phone. I just need a new battery. Yeah. And, and that's, that's what we're coming down. And I think that's actually a really good example of, of a quartz watch and movement. It's just, it's just popping out the movement, giving you a new watch. So one of the, one of the, one of the things that I pulled down the Longines VHP. Very high precision. |
| Everett | And this was introduced at Basel in 2017. |
| Andrew | Yeah, so a relatively new watch. And we're going to talk a little bit about it, but just as an example, this is a metal movement, repairable, serviceable movement. A WatchUC user, which we'll have a link to his article, needed it. Do you know his name? I don't remember his name because I wrote it down. I sent you the link. You're the fucking worst. You'll get show note credit, man. I'm sorry. Regardless, he reached out to Longines for a service on his movement and Longines recommended just popping out and putting a new movement in because the economics of it aren't worth it. To pull apart that entire mess of circuitry, just replace the movement. So when we get down to it, the difference between a good or bad or winner or loser, or however you want to frame it courts, isn't even in its serviceability or repairability. It comes down to. what it can do during its lifetime because all watches have a lifetime. Mechanical watches have a lifetime. There's some that you're just not gonna be able to service. The damage is too great. The parts are too worn. You're, you're going to get to a point where you have a restored watch maybe, but it doesn't have original parts. |
| Everett | Yeah. Well, and you've got people who make these parts, right? Right. You've got people whose sole dedication is Elgin watches from the early 20th century and they're actually fabricating replacement parts. |
| Andrew | And you can do that. You can. It can absolutely be done. But I think a reasonable comparison to draw is classic cars, cars from the from the 20s that look as though they're in brand new condition, likely have less than 20% original parts to them, if even that many. |
| Everett | Yeah, of the mechanical bits, certainly. |
| Andrew | Yeah. So anyway, back to it. Swiss versus Japanese quartz movements. And what we've got is a difference in, in engineering and manufacturing ideologies here. |
| Everett | Yeah. It's so, it's so cool how evident the philosophies that, that encapsulate the two markets are evident in this quartz movements. |
| Andrew | Yeah. And, and what you see is Swiss movements costing significantly more, serving the same function, having similar technology, using metal parts. And the criteria for Swiss made is very similar to American made. |
| Everett | Well, significantly less stringent though. |
| Andrew | I think it's like 40%. On the stamping, but when you look at it, their goal is to have all, so they can source from outside of Switzerland, but everything has to be done in Switzerland. So they have to assemble it in Switzerland. They have to install it in Switzerland so they can outsource parts differently than American made, the threshold, but it's all being done by Swiss fingertips. |
| Everett | And small Chinese fingertips. |
| Andrew | Well, in the way of construction and assembly and installation. Maybe not sourcing, maybe not manufacturing, but getting back to the Swiss ideology is building works of art, building the storied traditional watch parts. So you're typically going to be working with metal, oftentimes decorated, and carrying that Swiss beauty along with it. And then you look at Japanese quartz, Smash it together, make it work, make it cheap, and let's get it out the door. |
| Everett | And with the same 23 year or so lifespan. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Everett | The same 23 years out of the quartz movement, you're going to get out of the plastic Japanese movement. |
| Andrew | And the, the, there's a few notable differences that will, that will bring up in, in specific movements, but generally speaking, that's the difference you're getting. You're getting. manufactured for manufacturing sake, for efficiency sake, and you're getting manufactured for maintaining the Swiss tradition sake. And that's the biggest difference I can draw. And there's going to be exceptions to the rule, okay? Of course. Beat down the door, bring your pitchforks, bring your torches, but that's the big difference. |
| Everett | Because, right, the Seiko 9F movement is perhaps the simple, most beautiful, most sealed, Uh, most efficient, pure quartz, I'm going to say pure quartz movement in the world. And that's Japanese, fully Japanese, the Seiko 9F. |
| Andrew | And you've got Etta movements that are not trash because they're good movements, but you've got Etta movements that are just manufactured for the purpose of plug it in a watch, power the watch. When it dies, it dies. |
| Everett | Right. Ronda, Ronda, for instance, makes a ton of very affordable, 20, 20 something dollar attractive, but Pretty simple quartz movements. |
| Andrew | And it's form over function, I think is the general rule coming out of Swiss watchmakers and function over form coming out of Japanese watchmakers in the way of movements. And that's boiled down. That's as simple as it's going to get. I'm not going to go into every example because I think if we can boil it down to just the rule. |
| Everett | We couldn't go into every example, right? I mean, we simply could not in, I mean, we'd have to dedicate it. We'd have to dedicate weeks, months perhaps to this. |
| Andrew | Maybe just our entire podcast. So all that being said, let's talk about some specific watches and their movements. Quartz, obviously. Yeah. Let's talk about those. Yeah. Let's start since we've already talked about a little bit, the Longines VHP. Yeah. It's powered by the L2882. And it is plus or five, plus or minus five seconds. |
| Everett | Plus or five, you said something stupid. |
| Andrew | I did say something stupid. Finally, finally, plus or minus five seconds a year. And this dropped at Basel 2017. This is brand new, brand new technology. And the most impressive part of it to me is what we've talked about already. The diagnostics and self-regulation that occur in real time in this ultra high accuracy watch. They've upped the ante. We've got the gear positioning detector, which recalibrates. It not only monitors the watch. |
| Everett | Because already it's a thermal compensated quartz movement that's as accurate as anything in the world. |
| Andrew | Already. It's tied for the most accurate watch in the world. The Citizen A660. Is that the movement? Yes. It matches it. But what it's got is already the most accurate. And just in case you find a way to fuck this up, It'll fix itself. Up the ante. After magnetization, after shocks, it'll identify, oh, hey, we're a little out of sync. We're, we're plus or minus seven a year. Let's fix this. And it will recalibrate itself to get back on time. |
| Everett | And you know, my favorite part about the Longines VHP is that they offer it in watches that you and I could afford. Yes. Yes. It's the one movement that I think we're going to probably spend any time on in the next 20 minutes or so that is affordable for you and me. |
| Andrew | It is, and it's got a perpetual calendar that's good to 2100. That's the year 2100. I can't wait till that year. It's all Swiss made, and you're going to get some, I mean, generally speaking, you're going to pay about $1,000 for a watch with this in there, but it's available. |
| Everett | You and I could- Yeah, that's right. A thousand bucks is a lot of money, but it's totally accessible. |
| Andrew | We could do it, and they look good. It's not just a throwaway. It is a beautiful watch for $1,000. Beautiful movement, obviously, because it's coming out of Switzerland. Yeah. Cutting edge of technology. |
| Everett | And sort of flagship-y. |
| Andrew | But potentially one of the most technologically advanced movements on the market. How cool is that? |
| Everett | Yeah, it's pretty incredible. |
| Andrew | You're not going to get a cutting edge technology mechanical movement for $1,000. Yeah. |
| Everett | You just aren't. You're not. Yeah. I mean, I think threshold to entry for a Grand Seiko 9F is $4,000 or so. |
| Andrew | But damn, so next on my list, well, what have you got before I hog this all? |
| Everett | Well, no, it's your time to hog, but can we talk about the redheaded stepchild, the Boliva Precisionist? |
| Andrew | Can we please? Because I love it. |
| Everett | Because you can get a Precisionist for even less than a launch. For 250 bucks. That's right. But it's different, right? It is. It's different. It's different than all of these. It accomplishes accuracy not by way of thermal compensation or... They just have... They make it a non-issue. Let's make it go faster. Yeah. Let's up that ante again and just make it go faster. Yep. Let's make it go 262 kHz, which is something like 8 or 9 times as fast as a baseline 32768 movement, and deal with the instability in that manner. And when we do that, we've also got the ability to make it sweep smoother than any other mechanical movement that's ever existed. |
| Andrew | The only watch that sweeps smoother is going to be a spring drive. A spring drive, that's right. |
| Everett | That's right. |
| Andrew | Because it's, it really is sweeping. |
| Everett | And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because you can't tell the difference. Right. The human eye can't tell the difference between a 262 kilohertz and a spring drive. I mean, you just, it's invisible, right? Maybe if you put it in a loop or you put it on slow motion or whatever, but who cares? That's stupid. I can't detect it with my eyeballs. You can't, you can't. Also plus or minus five seconds per month. Different. Different. That's, that's not as accurate. That's not as accurate. Um, but. |
| Andrew | A minute a year, people. Come on. |
| Everett | Yeah. You know, I think these precisionist movements are super intriguing. Uh, and I think it's, it's a shame almost that we're not talking about them more because. |
| Andrew | We should be, but you know why we're not? Because they're in Bulova's. |
| Everett | Bulova. Fuck you. We've had a number of offers to, um, to invest in the Bulova acquisition. |
| Andrew | We are in negotiations right now. |
| Everett | We're still a few billion short. |
| Andrew | Well, I think they're a few billion high. We're trying to get them down to what's in my wallet currently, which is a button for some reason. Who has buttons in their wallet? |
| Everett | We're still short. We're still short. Yeah. Free sandwich, though. What's next? |
| Andrew | I mean... Okay, so we're through the Longines. |
| Everett | We're through Longines. We're through the Precisionist. |
| Andrew | Let's get into the Spring Drive. |
| Everett | Boom. |
| Andrew | The only note I wrote next to Spring Drive, come on. |
| Everett | Come on. |
| Andrew | What they've been able to accomplish in this movement is stunning. |
| Everett | Well, and can you, so to take it away and then I'll give it back, is this a pure quartz movement? |
| Andrew | It's not. |
| Everett | So tell me about why it's not. Oh boy. Okay. He just scratched his head furiously. |
| Andrew | Spring Drive is, I am willing to argue, The next step of ultra accurate timekeeping. I think that this is going with how impressive spring drive technology is, how relatively easy it is to accomplish. It will be shocking to me if we don't see spring drive technology emerging in other watch brands in the relatively near future spring drive technology. is a combination of mechanical technology and quartz technology. Similar to a mecha quartz in the way that they combine the two technologies. But what we're dealing with here is a winding function that is releasing tension, powering your quartz crystal and keeping time in the simplest of terms. Any more than that, and it's going to blow my mind because reading about it It just blows my mind. It's such a simple, elegant solution to accurate timekeeping. It's combining the best qualities, the most attractive qualities of both functionalities and marrying them and producing a beautiful movement that does exactly what we want it to do. |
| Everett | So here's my question to you, and you know more about Spring Drive than I do. So tell me this, why is it that it's better? Because it seems to me that it's possible. That it's purely romantic. That the spring drive movement in and of itself is purely romantic. We want a way to accurately, to make a mechanical movement more accurate. Why not go the Longines or perhaps the Bulova method and make it more accurate just by inherently increasing the beauty of the quartz movement? |
| Andrew | I think it is purely romantic. I think the reason they kept the spring drive technology is so that you get that beautiful, you're not getting a sweep, you're getting a consistent rotation. There isn't a bounce, there isn't a hundred ticks a second, it's a consistent unwinding of the spring. And I think it is a purely romantic thing, but the technological achievements in combining those two is, I think, the beauty of it. And what's so fascinating is that it was accomplished by the Japanese and not the Swiss. This seems like a Swiss solution to a quartz problem. |
| Everett | Right, because it's so sort of over-the-top ridiculous. |
| Andrew | Yeah, it is. And the beauty of these movements, just in and of themselves, you could put them in a display case. Never mind what Grand Seiko is doing in the way of of dressing these movements. But it really seems to me a Swiss solution that was pioneered and is now being exploited. Exploited in a good sense, capitalized on, maybe it'd be a better word, by Grand Seiko. |
| Everett | Because it's pure, it's not the most practical solution, right? |
| Andrew | It's not. It's a completely impractical solution because you can accomplish the same, for the most part, you know, with the precisionist style of movement, with just ultra-high accurate timekeeping, but instead they decided to combine these two technologies, give you the manual wine that you want, give you that, that automatic feel, that mechanical feel with all the accuracy of quartz. I love it. I love them. I want one so bad. |
| Everett | Yeah, no, I think, I think it's a pretty neat movement. Uh, I'd love to know more about it. Uh, but, but today that's all you get guys. We're going to move on. |
| Andrew | And if I'm wrong, I probably am. Let us know. For those of you who know more about it than we do, weigh in, let us know. But that's the best way I can describe what I think I know. |
| Everett | Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well, so, so why don't we shift to the other, to the other sort of, um, best, best in class, uh, another Japanese company competing really with Longines for, for most accurate. Citizen. Citizen. Yeah. Miota. |
| Andrew | Yep. And they just dropped their most accurate watch, the A660. |
| Everett | And well, and the A660 has been around since approximately 2000, I think, but, but they continue to up the ante in terms of the, like Longines, the, the sitting on top of the movement adjustments. But the A660 in and of itself is a thermal compensated quartz movement, right? Yeah. What I take issue with. Accurate to plus or minus five seconds per year. |
| Andrew | Yeah. What I take issue with though, what they just put it in is 10,000 money. |
| Everett | It's super expensive. It's a flagship watch for them. And it has been since the mid nineties. |
| Andrew | Yeah, it's just so expensive. It's expensive. I can get a Longines for less. |
| Everett | Yeah. You know, I think that they're making it a flagship in a calculated way. It probably doesn't make sense for them to not also offer it. Well, for my part, It seems possible that they could offer this movement, which probably is retail price under a hundred dollars. They could offer this movement in, in a more, uh, accessible watch. And I think it's deliberate that they don't. The Chronomaster, sorry, if you want to look this up, Citizen Chronomaster, right? Is that right? Chronomaster, um, is, is I think the, one of the only watches that you can get the A660 movement in it. And it's expensive. |
| Andrew | Maybe we should buy some of these movements and build a couple of watches from the ground up. |
| Everett | I think we could. I think we could. I don't think it would be impossible. |
| Andrew | It would be a pain in the ass, but I think that's something we should explore. |
| Everett | Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to make a watch, it would be a fun way to get started. Cause I do think you can buy them. I think you can get an A660 movement. |
| Andrew | We'll have to talk about this off air. |
| Everett | This seems like, this seems like something we could do. Is this going to happen? All right. You heard it here first. Stay tuned. Seiko, also in a pure quartz form, makes the 9F movement, and the 9F movement is probably the most capable, stable, long-term serviceable movement. They've done a couple things that no one else does. They've sealed it, vacuum sealed the movement internally. So that it's less, you know, you can change the battery and not expose the sensitive crystal and bits to dust, grease, oil, natural environmental stuff. Um, but, but I wonder, I mean, I think that in reality, this is, uh, um, lipstick on a pig, which is not to say it's a pig cause it's beautiful, but I don't know that you're not getting any extra time. because the service interval is basically the same, right? And they've said it's more. I think that they said because we've sealed it in this way, this is going to last longer, upwards towards twice as long, maybe a little bit more than that. |
| Andrew | But I mean, any watch, basically anything you own, the service regularity is going to come along with care. |
| Everett | Well, I think that's right. But I think what they've done is that they have, um, They have eliminated some of those care obstacles by sealing the cabin. And the other thing the 9F does that I think nothing else does, no other quartz movement does, is, you know, because Grand Seiko is known for these big sort of steel dauphine hands, is instead of having it beat once, they actually use two crystals to make it beat twice per second. And it doesn't look like a half second interval. It's still just a one second interval. Um, but at that one second, it actually forces it by way of two oscillations, which gives it some extra, um, some extra ass, as you would say. Uh, now there are widely varying anecdotal reports of how this works in practice, but in theory, it gives it more ass and more accuracy. |
| Andrew | The VHP, uh, they're so. confident in their accuracy, that it takes, uh, extra effort to adjust the minutes. The hour hand is what adjusts typically when you're, when you're setting the BHP, which was just normal rotations. You're not going to have to set the minutes once it's set. It takes micro turns to adjust the minutes. Normal turns adjust the hour. |
| Everett | Very cool. That's some balls. |
| Andrew | Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Andrew | Yeah. I like that. Last quartz movement that I want to talk about, and only briefly, It's a category. |
| Everett | Mecca Quartz. Mecca Quartz. Yeah. I mean, this is sort of the, this is sort of the like most commonplace application, I think, for most people to get into quartz movements when they're, when they're looking, when they're young collectors, I would say. |
| Andrew | And they're widely available in chronographs. Yup. Super affordable in chronographs. The VK64 is a $33 movement. Most watches that you're going to get the VK64 in are south of 300 bucks. They are. |
| Everett | Well, they go anywhere from $300 to, you know, very excellent $1,500 watches. |
| Andrew | But you're going to be able to find watches powered by this movement. That's right. In the sub $300 categories. Right. And it's such a cool movement. It uses quartz to power the primary functionality and a mechanical operation to power the chronograph function. So you're going to get a really accurate chronograph function coming from a mechanical movement. and the longevity and accuracy of a quartz movement for your primary timekeeping. I absolutely love mecha quartz. They look so cool. You're also going to get the flyback more often than not in these mecha quartz movements, so you're not going to get the sweep like you're going to get out of a typical quartz cornograph. You're going to get that flyback to zero, and I dig it. |
| Everett | Yeah. No, I mean, it's incredible technology, and it's really just mechanical cornograph. Cornograph? Cornograph? Chronograph set on top of a quartz movement. I mean, it's the most obvious dumb thing Possible and I love them. Yeah And I say most obvious dumb as if I could have thought of it at lunch But well you could have because it's not complicated. |
| Andrew | It's like oh, I know how I'm gonna combine these two technologies I'm just gonna smash them together. Yeah, like It's not. I know how many of my chips in the sandwich at the same time. My chips in my sandwich. Problem solved. |
| Everett | No greasy fingers. It's not as elegant as the spring drive, for instance. It's significantly less elegant, but it was just that like, oh shit, this is awesome idea that once again Seiko capitalized on. You know, to sort of back you up before you talk a little bit more about the Mecca courts, because I'm sure you're going to want to. Seiko, you know, that 1964 Olympics. They introduced this time keeping methodology, uh, really, you know, and I say introduced, they didn't introduce it, but they refined it to such a degree that it was, you know, by orders of magnitude, smaller and better, but they also, you know, by way of the developments that they made in, in preparing for that introduced the first portable printer. introduce the Epson company, essentially, that's the roots of the Epson company. They introduce LCD technology. They, you know, and eventually these things lead to the development of the spring drive and everything else. You know, it cannot be overestimated the amount of import to that one, that one development, you know, and it's not that it was a singular development, but that singular piece of the Seiko story, how important this was to not just watches or clocks, but, and timekeeping generally, but to electronics. I mean, they did a thing and we cannot underestimate the import to that thing. |
| Andrew | Agreed. Shall we move on to other things? Unless you have anything else, we are cutting it close on time. |
| Everett | We're, we're over. And so let's take a couple minutes just to go over, because I think I think you can skip forward a couple minutes if you want. This is when you do the 30 second advance if you want, but I think six times, I think it's important to say that, you know, we've talked about mostly very cool, very cutting edge quartz movements in the show, but I want to be very clear about one thing. The shittiest. Quartz movement, the cheapest, nastiest six 50 on Esslinger quartz movement is going to have a 23 year life interval. It's going to cost you nothing, and it's going to perform at a very high level. Yeah, a very high level. Quartz movements, because of the nature of the oscillation, that quartz crystal oscillation, are really very bulletproof. They're very bulletproof. Well, not bulletproof. Well, of course not literally bulletproof, but my point is that you do not gain all that much When you get a VHP or a 9F. No, you really don't. I mean, just practically speaking, you don't gain very much. And so when you are looking for a quartz watch, I wouldn't spend a ton of time worrying about this. I would find a watch that you're going to love. I would find a watch that's going to meet your needs because we haven't even talked about digital modules. No, I mean, we just didn't do it because it's impossible, right? I mean, the amount of movements available exceed my brain's ability to, to sort. I mean, I just, at some point, I think I texted you last night. It was like, I can't, I can't even process how many movements there are. I think the goal for today's show was to say, Oh, if you're looking for a quartz movement, here's what to look for. The answer for me wound up being don't fucking worry about it. Don't worry about it. Um, you know, cause there's a number of movements and we haven't even talked about all the cool ones. |
| Andrew | You said, holy shit, didn't know what I was getting us into. |
| Everett | You know, there's the Breitling super quarts, which we didn't talk about. Omega mega quarts. |
| Andrew | Maybe we'll do a whole, we will do a part two to this. |
| Everett | You know, a couple of movements that I noted that are known for their repairability at a 2052, excuse me, at a 252 series. Ronda makes the StarTech line, which is the 5030 slash 5040, not thermal compensated. They're uncompensated quartz movements, but extremely accurate. |
| Andrew | You're still getting 30 seconds or better a year. |
| Everett | Metal, easy to service. Also, the ETA 955, 956 line is known for being serviceable and beautiful. But even under that, you know, very common movements, the Ronda 715 Li, the Ronda 5021, which is what Filson, not Filson, Shinola uses, the Argonite 5021. |
| Andrew | And Argonite's what they call it in-house, right? |
| Everett | That's right. That's their quote-unquote in-house quartz movement. These are just simple run-of-the-mill movements that are great. that are great. They may not be super serviceable or super beautiful. |
| Andrew | But they cost $3.52. Literally $3.52. |
| Everett | 20-ish bucks, I think, for a lot of these to the general public. You know, Timex? Timex makes a ton of basic, shitty movements in the Far East. And they're gonna last for a very long time. |
| Andrew | They're gonna outlast the first battery. |
| Everett | And then they break and they break. And you're probably done. And you either try to find another one or not. You get a new watch. Interestingly, Timex, who I suspect sells as many quartz movements a year as just about anybody else in the world, minus maybe Casio. Yeah. Timex, when they reintroduced the Q-Timex, which as you guys will know, the Q-Timex was Timex's first foray into the quartz world. They reintroduced that this year, if you haven't heard. |
| Andrew | Why are you listening to this podcast? |
| Everett | When they reintroduced this, they used a Seiko movement. They used a fairly run-of-the-mill Seiko quartz movement, the PC33, which is one of a ton of movements that Seiko or Hattori, Seiko's quartz movement branch, uses in watches, right? So there are good quartz movements, there are less good quartz movements, and then there are, you know, the middle of the quartz movement world is tremendous. The middle is, is almost the whole band. And then on top of that, you've got special movements, but you gain so little at such a high cost for these special movements that the takeaway for me is don't worry about it. |
| Andrew | Buy a watch that you like. Buy a watch that you're going to wear. |
| Everett | Uh, you know, and, and if not, if you want one of these cool watches, do your research, have some fun with your purchase. Enjoy what you have. But if you're buying a Quartz Movement, just know it's got a 23-year service interval. Maybe get a spare, I don't know, and keep it hermetically sealed. I'm not sure. But yeah, so that's it. Other things you like, go. |
| Andrew | This week I'm going to do something a little different with other things that I like. Oh boy. I'm going to do something I don't like. That's not allowed. It's allowed this week. So over the last year, I've received two emails from streaming service providers that say, In the next year, we will no longer support your smart TV on our streaming service. And that's bothersome to me. Got it first from Hulu. So now I have to use my PlayStation to run Hulu, which is whatever. I just have to change inputs, which is a pain in the ass because unlike Netflix, where I can just push the button on my TV remote and problem solved. But I got that email from Amazon this week. Amazon sent me the email. Hello, as of September of this year, which isn't far away, we will no longer support your smart TV on our streaming service. But when I got the Amazon one, I was also a little excited because I got a $25 credit for a Fire Stick device. Right. So I got a Fire Stick. It's coming in the mail this week and I'm very excited to try it out. Mostly because I've seen Kim watching Fire Stick with headphones plugged into the remote I don't wear headphones when I watch TV because I watch TV. The sound comes through the TV. I'm so excited to watch TV with headphones in plugged into the remote. So in the next week, I'll have a Fire Stick and I'll have all my streaming services back available to me through my TV. So I'm kind of excited about it. But what's the deal? This isn't an old TV. This is like a 2014 TV. |
| Everett | You know, I've oftentimes wondered at the utility of a smart TV. I mean, I get not having to have a separate device, but when a Roku, when the most advanced Roku on the market is 60 bucks, I've oftentimes wondered at the utility. Do you Roku? I use Roku. |
| Andrew | Oh no. So I might not have a headphone remote. |
| Everett | I don't know. Yeah. Oh fuck. That's possible. I'm not sure. It's a Roku. |
| Andrew | Now it's really something I don't like. Oh no. Damn. |
| Everett | You know, I mean, the utility is is minimal, I think. And when we bought our last TV, I went used. I went to the used market and bought, you know, a two year old top of the line TV. And just this week I noticed a black line. And so I've had to sort of start thinking about what TV do I buy? Do I want 4K? What do I want? |
| Andrew | I'm in that boat because I have a five year old plasma and some ghost images remain. Yeah. For a while, even when I do the screen wipe it and we bought it. kind of at the at the peak of the plasma or LCD. |
| Everett | That time I put the big dong on there and turned the brightness up when you're on vacation. |
| Andrew | I left it up for a whole week so now I just have this weird big big dong shadow on everything that I watch which is really strange when I'm watching like Lego movies with my four-year-old. He doesn't quite understand why it's there he just assumes that all television shows have that watermark but someday he'll learn. |
| Everett | Yeah, no, it's a weird thing, man. Uh, smart TVs, I've always sort of been anti, but having not really used one, um, I, you know, I can't say that for sure, but the thing that occurred to me when, when I first started thinking about this was that likely the software you're going to get from LG or Samsung or whoever, whoever it is that makes your smart TV is going to be less supported, harder to update firmware, and just generally less capable than an independent, a $50, $60, or hell, $25 Fire Stick. Amazon can just snap their fingers, kick you out a firmware update. And that's what they're doing. And there's utility in that. Cameras, cameras. You guys know we like cameras. Um, but you know, the, the worst thing about cameras is software, the software, the, the, the, the user interfaces on cameras are notoriously terrible, uh, sub menus and just bullshit and they're terrible. Um, so yeah, I've oftentimes wondered about the utility, this idea that they're no longer going to support your smart TV totally in my head clicks because now you've got to either get a new TV or. get the device that you were going to have anyway. I'm just not going to worry about it. I'm going to continue using my Roku, which gives me sling and Hulu and HBO and anything that I need, not to mention Netflix and Amazon. Yeah. Well, why, why smart TV? Why smart TV? I don't want you. |
| Andrew | Well, I do want you. I like my TV, but I'm hopefully I'm not going to like my fire stick too. |
| Everett | I've got another thing. |
| Andrew | Do me. |
| Everett | When I was researching for watches, I found a video that will be linked below. about how quartz movements work. It's a brand new video or fairly recent video. And this guy is a nerd and he's awesome. And he just, it's a fun video. Uh, he puts flip-flops on a chain and describes how you step down from 32 kilohertz to a beat per second. |
| Andrew | That's my speed. Yeah. That's my kind of guy. |
| Everett | He he's hard to understand. He's easy to understand. Um, as he's talking about this fairly complicated issue. So. But he linked me to a YouTube channel called Everything with a K. Everything. Two words. This is a guy named Dom Burgess. You can find his website. I recommend going to his website, domburgess.com. He is a producer, a science video maker. He produces a BBC show, but he also makes YouTube videos for the general public. And as of late, He's been making these cinematic, fun comedy, he calls it SciCom, science comedy videos, and it's fantastic. He only has like 60,000 followers on YouTube, which blows my mind. If he keeps making videos of the quality he has, that number's gonna leap very quickly. But everything, DonBurgess.com, he talks about time travel, and going to Mars, and wormholes, you know fun stuff and he does it in this very light-hearted approachable approachable way now I will say because of his dedication to be light-hearted and sort of comedic sometimes you get lost in the sauce a little bit on the science on the pure science of it it can be a little hard to follow which is fine because I'm not smart that's right you're enjoying the video and enjoying the aesthetics and enjoying the the special effects which he does a really good job of Um, so, so maybe not the most digestible in terms of a brainy, a nerdy brainy way, but it's a heck of a lot more fun. |
| Andrew | Yeah. I'm not going to write my PhD off of this stuff. I'm just going to, you know, indulge my curiosity. |
| Everett | Yeah. Well, do you have anything else this week? I don't. We're going on a, uh, we're going on a long ass time. So I think it's probably a good time to wrap it up. |
| Andrew | Let's do it. |
| Everett | Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20. Please check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20. Also, if you'd like to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye-bye. Our music today is Bummin' on Tremolo by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com. licensed under creative commons by attribution 3.0 license |