Patek Philippe's New Advanced Research Minute Repeater

Patek Philippe’s new Advanced Research minute repeater reinvents the striking mechanism for a single purpose – volume.

- Wei-Yu Wang

THE MOST INTRIGUING thing about Patek Philippe’s Ref 5750P is not that it revolutionises chiming mechanisms, or even that it is an entirely new aesthetic proposition from the luxury watch manufacturer. It is that, by its own admission, the 5750P is an imperfect product. At its digital launch, CEO and fourth-generation brand leader Thierry Stern outlined the two main aspects by which a minute repeater is judged: volume and sound character. The 5750P is a concerted effort at the former and almost entirely the latter. It represented a challenge tackled by Patek Philippe’s Advanced Research division, which has been pushing the envelope with various innovations since 2005. Thus the 5750P, which involved three years of development and four patents, is christened Advanced Research Fortissimo. ‘Fortissimo’ is Italian for ‘very loud’ and is often seen as the abbreviation ff in musical notation.

The 5750P builds on the extant Ref 5178, a refined but conventional cathedral gong minute repeater. It is based on the same self-winding calibre R 27 PS, with the all-new striking module on the back, isolated with a polymer layer to prevent unwanted vibrational crosstalk. As is often the case with these innovations, it is conceptually quite simple. It is, in fact, the same principle as that of the phonograph, which mechanically amplifies sound by transmitting vibrations to a membrane via a lever.