Rolex Chronergy vs Omega Coaxial - real world out of box precision?
Both the Chronergy and Coaxial escapements are a marvel — modern mass-industrial productions of what were previously one-off discoveries of optimizing the centuries old escapement.
SJX has two very impressive, very thorough writeups on both systems:
Rolex Chronergy is actually based on a Seiko invention. Kenji Abe had discovered these new geometry optimizations while working at Seiko Suwa in the 1970s, but Seiko was not able to actually mass produce those insights effectively at the time. Rolex was able to find it and perfect them today with modern industrial manufacturing.
Omega Coaxial, meanwhile, was George Daniel’s improvement on the Fasoldt escapement first sketched out around 1870 by merging it with a direct-impulse design by Breguet, and again made for mass modern industrial manufacturing.
My question is: if you walked into an AD and picked 10 METAS Omegas and 10 +-2s Rolexes, entirely at random off the shelf at random, which 10 would actually be more accurate on average? About the same or different?
Does anyone have a good gut feel based on what they have bought and handled?
enthusiast of wearable high precision timekeeping - mechanical, quartz, TCXO, OCXO, RF and network time sync, atomic clocks. I like them all.
Funny, I just posted about the accuracy of the 3230 in my Rolex Explorer. I love nerding out on this kind of stuff (even when it makes my head hurt a little). My understanding is that the biggest benefit of the co-axial is the lack of friction, and therefore longer service intervals. So I would guess that brand new, out of the box the Rolex movements would win. But 10 or 15 years down the line? That could very well be Omega’s time to shine.
Thanks for the links, those are both interesting articles, although somewhat challenging to follow at points. I have no idea what the differences might be between the Rolex and Omega movements in practical terms. My guess is that with todays modern manufacturing capabilities, they are probably both very close to the same.
My Omega coaxial is incredibly accurate running approximately 0.72 seconds per day fast over long periods of time. Obviously I got lucky and not all samples are going to be that accurate but I also believe some samples might be even more accurate.
Have the Seamaster 300M Diver with the Cal 8800 and the Explorer 124270 with the Cal 3230. Neither get "all" the wrist time, both get plenty: the Seamaster is my most worn watch over the past 4 years; the Explorer is my most worn watch over the past 11 months. Using the WatchTracker app to track accuracy, my experience is both are exceptionally accurate. YMMV...
Rolex Cal 3230: average daily rate 0.0 spd
Omega Cal 8800: average daily rate 1.1 spd
My understanding is that the focus of the co-axial escapement was not to improve accuracy, but to reduce friction, which theoretically should mean significant reduction in servicing to the movement (taken from Hodinkee):
"the design combined the shock resistance of the lever with the direct, almost frictionless action of the detent, which meant that lubrication at the impulse surfaces was theoretically no longer necessary, and you could use it in a portable timekeeper."
My understanding is that the focus of the co-axial escapement was not to improve accuracy, but to reduce friction, which theoretically should mean significant reduction in servicing to the movement (taken from Hodinkee):
"the design combined the shock resistance of the lever with the direct, almost frictionless action of the detent, which meant that lubrication at the impulse surfaces was theoretically no longer necessary, and you could use it in a portable timekeeper."
I think it’s more holistic, though, at least to my understanding. Yes, it means less wear to the escapement teeth and jewels, but it also (theoretically) meant that long term isochronism from the years-long process of oils drying out does not influence timekeeping.
Because since a lever movement impulse is always delivered by sliding, in theory as oils dried over the years there should be a very slow change to timekeeping no matter what you did. I believe the goal of George Daniels in the late 1960s was to mitigate that and basically compete with quartz accuracy that was sprouting all around at the time, and have a watch that had perfect timekeeping for 10-15 years as the oil dried out.
He was very proud of his double impulse escapement in Space Traveler, for example, which had a high accuracy quartz level of accuracy (1s / month, though to be fair, it was a pocket watch and not a wristwatch) https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/george-daniels-space-traveller-world-record-sothebys
You can also see that oral history of the original motivation being told by his protege Roger Smith in this Talking Watches 6 years ago (RIP to the show): https://youtube.com/watch?v=M1Be89xssps
Omega. Because you wont be able to walk in and get 10 rolexes off the shelf LOL
I find the physics variables at play in the Chronergy system to be fascinating. One day I randomly decided to look into it and found myself enamored.
My Omega Seamaster 300 Heritage is only 20 seconds fast since the last time change. That means it is only 0.16 seconds per day fast!
That's super accurate.
Funny, I just posted about the accuracy of the 3230 in my Rolex Explorer. I love nerding out on this kind of stuff (even when it makes my head hurt a little). My understanding is that the biggest benefit of the co-axial is the lack of friction, and therefore longer service intervals. So I would guess that brand new, out of the box the Rolex movements would win. But 10 or 15 years down the line? That could very well be Omega’s time to shine.
Re co-axial: lower friction means the movement can in theory run at higher rate with same energy consumption. In that case, the higher rate should allow for better performance.
Obviously, key word here is theory.
Interesting articles.
Thanks.
Certainly interesting so thank you for the post as it’s great to learn.
I don’t have enough breadth of experience to guess here but, based on a very small sample size of the Rolexes I have come across, they are markedly poorer timekeepers a couple of years post-servicing and if Omega have found a way to make performance accuracy more enduring that would be of significant appeal to me.
My Omega Seamaster 300 Heritage is only 20 seconds fast since the last time change. That means it is only 0.16 seconds per day fast!
That's super accurate.
My 300 gained less than 30 seconds over 3 months the last time I checked. I should sync it tomorrow and see where it’s at. I can’t remember the last time I stopped the second hand. it’s been 6 months at least.