Audemars Piguet put out three new watches on November 2, and all three do something most watches can’t do. They play the time out loud. Slide a small lever on the case and tiny hammers strike metal gongs inside the watch, chiming the hour, the quarter hours, and the minutes in clear tones. The three watches are the Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie in titanium, the same watch in pink gold, and the Code 11.59 Minute Repeater Supersonnerie in white gold. Prices run from $397,800 to $479,100, and AP sells them only through its own boutiques and AP Houses.
What a minute repeater does
A normal watch shows you the time. A minute repeater tells it to you in sound. One low tone rings for each hour. A double tone rings for each quarter hour past the hour. A high tone rings for each minute past the last quarter. At 4:47, the watch plays four low tones, three double tones, and two high tones. You can learn the time in the dark, with the watch still on your wrist.
Watchmakers count the repeater among the hardest features in a watch. Hundreds of small parts have to count the time and strike it back in the right order, every time, with no battery and no speaker. The whole thing runs on springs and gears wound by hand.
What the Supersonnerie system adds
Most repeaters sound soft. The case is small, so the sound stays small. Audemars Piguet spent eight years on that one problem, working with sound scientists and musicians. The system it built puts the gongs on a thin soundboard inside the case. The board works like the top of a guitar. It takes the small ring of the gongs and pushes it out into the room. Small openings in the case let the sound escape instead of trapping it.
The result is a chime that is far louder and clearer than a standard repeater. AP first showed the system in 2016 in the Royal Oak Concept RD#1. It now sits in the brand’s top chiming watches. Each one is tuned by hand before it leaves the factory, and that slow work is why AP builds so few.
One movement in all three watches
All three watches run the same engine, Calibre 2953. You wind it by hand with the crown. It packs 362 parts and 32 jewels into a movement 30 millimeters wide and 6 millimeters thick. One full wind keeps the watch running for at least 72 hours, a full three days. A small seconds dial sits low on the face of each watch. All three cases shrug off water to 20 meters, so rain is fine and swimming is out.
Royal Oak in titanium with a green dial
The first Royal Oak is built from titanium, case and bracelet both. Titanium is light and warm gray, and it keeps a big 42 millimeter watch easy to wear. The dial is green in the middle and fades to black at the edges. Thin metal markers show the hours, and the small seconds dial sits at six o’clock. AP is making just 50 of these.
Price: $429,700
Where to buy: Audemars Piguet (Ref. 26591TI.OO.1252TI.08)
Royal Oak in pink gold with a brown dial
The second Royal Oak is the first Supersonnerie AP has built in pink gold. The case and bracelet are 18-karat pink gold, warm and red next to the titanium model’s gray. The brown dial carries AP’s Grande Tapisserie pattern, a fine grid of tiny squares the brand cuts one dial at a time on an old rose engine machine. It is the most costly of the three watches.
Price: $479,100
Where to buy: Audemars Piguet (Ref. 26591OR.OO.1252OR.01)
Code 11.59 in white gold with a clear dial
The Code 11.59 takes a different path. Its case is 41 millimeters of 18-karat white gold and 13.6 millimeters thick, worn on a gray alligator strap. The dial is smoked sapphire, a sheet of tinted glass. You can see straight through it to the gears and levers of Calibre 2953 at work under the hands. AP first built this watch in 2023, and the white gold case is new for this round.
Price: $397,800
Where to buy: Audemars Piguet (Ref. 26395BC.OO.D009CR.01)
Few built, sold only in AP stores
None of the three will sit in a shop window for long. The hand tuning caps how many AP can finish, and the brand sells the trio only through its own boutiques and AP Houses. At these prices, that is the point. Each watch is a small machine that plays music on request, built by one of the few firms on earth that still makes them at this level.
