Fresh from the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo, this morning we're talking about the incredible
Omega Calibre 9000 series - the 9300, 9301, the 9900. If you are looking for a video helping
you decide between all the different Speedmasters available, that's the last video where we
talked about Reduced, and we talked about the Moonwatch and the different options that
are available from the racing series. That's not this video. If you're looking for that
one, find the other video. This one's just about this incredible movement. Omega started
out with their 8500 Calibre, which some people argued wasn't really in-house. It was the
first coaxial that they used on the Speedmaster and Seamaster watches. The reason they argued
that it wasn't really in-house was that, Omega is owned by the Swatch Group and so is the
ETA movement company.
Even though Omega developed the movement, and the parts were sourced through Omega's
own internal system, some of the assembly was done in the same building with ETA. So
there was a thought that ETA made the movement. A lot of real purists on this question of
an in-house movement kind of thought less of the 8500 because of that. Omega understood
the complaint. They built a separate system right next to the rest of the Swatch Group
factories, the ETA movement, but it's the completely, their own space. It's an Omega
designated factory. This movement, the 9300 series, 9000 series was completely developed
and manufactured completely in-house. It's got a lot of credibility, but not only that,
when it came out in 2011, it really kind of killed everything else for me. I'm a big fan
of this movement.
For me, it really incorporates everything that watch technology has so far, all in one
movement. It is a big movement, by the way, I want to show you a comparison. This is a
40-millimeter Rolex Submariner, which you're probably very familiar with the size of. This,
for example, is what you see in a Speedmaster at 44 and a quarter millimeter. It's only
four and a quarter millimeters bigger. I mean, it is almost half a centimeter, but you can
see it's a substantially bigger watch than the Submariner. Then , if you get into the
watches that they made for the Seamaster that use the same movement, you can see they're
really quite a bit bigger than a Submariner. They're really the same dimension as a Seadweller,
both in diameter and in thickness. It's a big watch, I don't have very big wrists, but
you can see I'm wearing it here today.
This is the Speedmaster in steel and rose gold. Even though I have smaller than average
wrists, I think the size looks great. The 44 and a quarter millimeter really, it's a
great size. Don't be swayed from that. Back to the movement, when they launched it in
2011, it initially launched only on Seamaster Planet Ocean and Speedmaster models. The things
that just made it phenomenal, that for me, like I said, it packs everything into one
movement that watch technology has - it's a coaxial escapement, which essentially removes
the friction from the timekeeping portion of the watch. It extends the service intervals
to about double. I know you've always heard you should service your watches about every
four or five years. These are really like eight to ten years, because that friction
is just not there.
The second thing is that they're really resistant to the problems that people sometimes have
with mechanical watches. The most frequent problems that you see with a mechanical watch
is either it becomes magnetized or it's dropped, and there's some impact damage. The great
news about this movement is that because it uses the silicone balance spring, and you'll
see it marked on the back of the watch SI 14, that balanced spring is essentially impervious
to magnetic fields. It's actually resistant up to 15,000 Gauss, that's 1.5 Tesla of magnetic
field. It's 50% more than the famous Rolex Milgauss and yet not even something that they
really tout real highly about this watch, but 15,000 Gauss resistance. It's also much
more resistant to impact damage. You never mean to drop your watch. You also never mean
to drop your phone, but somehow we all drop our phones and end up with cracked screens,
right?
The same way, it's nice to have that protection there just in case you were to drop your watch.
It is not impact proof of course, but it's a lot more impact resistant where there wouldn't
be as much damage to the watch. It does have the column wheel chronograph movement, which
is considered the top kind of chronograph movement architecture. As opposed to the myriad
of watches you see out there that use a Valjoux 7750 based movement, this uses a vertical
clutch system. This is just silky smooth. I mean, when you push this button, you don't
get that massive chunk that you get with a Valjoux movement where the hands kind of jolt.
You're not even sure whether you're timing the right thing or not. With this, it's just
so smooth and you're just right there on it. It's a perfect reset to zero.
It just feels fantastic. If you're familiar with other chronographs, you won't want those
anymore, once you try this one. The other thing that is interesting about this watch
is that, of course, it's a certified chronometer. In the regular Moonwatch, as we talked about
this in the other video, you couldn't get a date, you couldn't get a certified chronometer,
you can't get an automatic movement. That's all in this. But not only that, as far as
the functionality goes, they've engineered something really cool here that in the chronograph
counter, on the right side - so there's only two sub-dials for the chronograph instead
of the normal three, that you see on say an Omega Moonwatch or a Speedmaster reduced,
or most of the Speedmaster racing use these three sub-dials. This one, they've combined
the hour and minute counter into one dial here at three o'clock.
The interesting benefit there is that, if you were to start the chronograph at midnight,
and then you would have a second time zone reading there, because it looks just like
a clock it's hour and minute hands, just like you're used to seeing. You can actually have
a second time zone displayed there all the time as a second little clock, just by starting
at either noon or midnight and the other time zone on your chronograph. This one also has
the hacking function that when you pull the crown out, it stops the seconds hand for the
main watch so you can synchronize. But one nice thing is, if you travel a lot, you see
this with GMT watches, but you really, this could replace everything for you. Especially
if you've got the Seamaster version, you would have a dive watch, a chronograph and the two
timezone watch all in one. The way you can operate this when you're traveling, when you
pull the crown out all the way, it stops the second hand, of course, but if you push it
in to control the hour hand, the second hand is still running.
It doesn't mess up your timekeeping while you're jumping time zones. You can jump time
zones one hour at a time real easily just by turning the crown. That's also how you
adjust the date incidentally. There's not a separate, quick set on the date. You just
use the hour hand, but it's super easy. With it pushed all the way, with the crown pushed
all the way in, of course, you're going to use that just to wind it manually if you haven't
worn it for a while and it has stopped. It does have a 60-hour power reserve because
it has the two barrels. A barrel is the part of the watch where the main spring is, and
most watches only have one main spring. This is a really cool one. We just got in with
the distressed Brown leather strap.
I pulled this one out so that I could take the strap off real quick and show you this
movement. One of the nice things that Omega did with this movement was they clearly labeled
everything. You can see it, it's all rhodium plated. It's gorgeous. The "côtes de Genève",
the waves of Geneva engraving on this, it's called "En Arabesque". It's actually in a
curved sort of fashion. It's a beautiful movement, but they've labeled everything for you. It
shows you, if you're not a watchmaker, but you're still interested in the mechanics of
these things. I think most of us are that are fascinated with mechanical watches. It
has a clearly labeled, barrel one barrel two. It tells you that all the adjustments that
shows you where the column wheel mechanism is. It has the various seals here. Now on
a lot of these, when you see where it has gone from the 9300 to the 9900 movement, it
adds to the dial instead of just chronometer, it says Master Chronometer.
What that means is, the chronometer's go to the COSC, which is the division of the Swiss
Government, that tests watches. They're tested for five days and nights at three different
temperatures and five different positions. They're accurate to within minus four to plus
six seconds a day. But to relate it more to what happens in real life to these watches,
this one has the 99 series movement, 9900. This one was sent to another, after it already
went to COSC to become a chronometer. Then it went to METAS, it's another division of
the Swiss Government that does all sorts of testing for scientific instruments, all sorts
of things that, you know, they really, really want to tap their accuracy of products that
are made in Switzerland. They test all sorts of things. But when this watch was cased up,
it was already a chronometer.
It went to METAS and it received eight more tests. These tests are things that are more
like real life of a watch on the wrist. They tested it for power reserve, to see how long
the power reserve was. They tested it for accuracy at low power reserve. they run it
down to about 30%. Then test the accuracy of the chronograph and the timekeeping at
30% power reserve. They test it for magnetic resistance. They even magnet to try to magnetize
it and de-magnetize it and see what the result is. It really is a real life test. They do
in different positions, they do some impact, they do some underwater. You can actually
read on the Omega website, what the eight tests are. One of the really neat things is
when you have one of these watches and you have the METAS certificate, you can look up
online with your METAS certificate number, what the actual results of your tests were,
when this watch went into that METAS part of the Swiss Government.
We've covered the functions on the watch, of course, the one function we didn't cover
was the tachymetric scale, where you can test units per hour. The formula for speed of course,
is rate, distance and time. If you know the distance, say a one mile marker of something,
so you know the distance, the watch will give you the time. But it will also just calculate
for you right here on the bezel, the average units per hour. For example, if you're tracking
a car that does a one mile and it takes that 30 seconds, you'll be able to see the average
speed was a 120 miles per hour, so it's units per hour. You can use it in kilometers and
miles. You could do widgets per hour in your factory. You could do number of watches shipped
per hour here at SwissWatchExpo. All sorts of things that you could do with that.
But the bezels on these are ceramic and they use Omega liquid metal technology. You can
see, like on this one, the way the numbers look in the ceramic bezel. The ceramic is
very shiny and it's just a great look. It won't fade out. It doesn't scratch it. It
won't change over time. It's just beautiful. On these watches, you'll see the applied markers
on the dial are 18 carat, White Gold filled with Super LumiNova that glows green, when
they catch the light in the sun, it’s s s just really beautiful. That's why for me,
this is the killer watch that kills everything else. It has incorporated all the various
things that have been invented for mechanical watches. It overcomes some of the problems
that people sometimes have with it. It has all the functions, it has the exhibition case
backs.
I can see the beautifully decorated movement. Every technology that we've got at this point,
all in one watch that really is substantially larger, and to me, a better size than what
people think of as the cornerstone watch for any watch collection, the Submariner. You
can see that almost any day, if I were picking which watch to wear that day, I think this
Speedmaster racing 44 and a quarter millimeter is going to win the competition every time
for me to pick it up and wear it. Fresh from the Showcase, let us know in the comments,
what you think about this watch versus all the competition. Let us know what you think
about the various functions of it. We'd love to hear from you on that, click to subscribe
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