Gravitational force of earth is known to impact everything that is within its reach. Watches and their movements are no exception to this rule either. Hence, it is the responsibility of watchmakers to design their watches in such a way as to reduce the impact of gravity on them. The tourbillon mechanisms were primarily created with this aim in mind.

Now, Roger Dubuis has come up with a watch movement featuring four sprung balances to nullify the effect of gravity. As a result of this, they are claiming more accuracy in the watch. While wearing the watch, the subtle sound from the four escapements falls on your years in unison like the playing of a sweet musical instrument. The watch can run continuously for 40 hours at a time. Each one of these escapements is 4Hz and adds up to the overall 16Hz of the watch. This watch was introduced for the first time at the SIHH 2013. Its name in itself has a uniqueness tongue twisting flavor to it. It is never easy to pronounce ‘Quatuor’. Some of you may find it almost impossible to say the name out aloud legibly!

Dubuis has been the creator of some of the most expensive watches that are available in the market. As such, they are reserved exclusively for the wardrobes of the richest few watch lovers on the planet.

The Quatuor is a big watch with a 48 mm diameter heavy gold case. Due to the complexity of the design, the watch has to be a heavy and thick one. There is no known way to include such a complex mechanism in to a thin watch. Only eighty eight watches of this limited edition model are available at the market for a price of 380,000 Swiss francs each. Again, they have three silicon case versions (which are lighter than gold) of the same model available at a cost of 1 million Swiss francs each.

How can Roger Dubuis justify such atrociously high prices? The perfection of the watch and symmetry of its creation do require the services of extremely talented technicians and engineers to hand craft it. As per the figures provided by the watch maker, a Quatuor needs 2400 man hours to create just one of these horologic wonders. This extremely high need for high-quality workmanship does provide a sound basis for the asking price.

Does the complexity of the watch and its dial affect its legibility? Even though there are a lot of visible elements incorporated on to the watch dial, it is not hard to read time.

Gregory Bruttin is the main brains behind the watch’s creation and is the lead designer of the watchmaker for some time now. The caliber RD101 that is running the watch has 600 individual parts that are assembled together in a masterly manner. The shades of black and the perfect finish given to the Quatuor add to its finesse on the wearer’s wrists. At the same time, these same features make it really tough for any photographer’s to capture its true beauty.