Would you, could you buy the SARX055 “Baby Snowflake” instead of the GS SBGA211 Snowflake, and save yourself $5,200?

[Trigger warning:  The slaughter of sacred cows is going to take place in this post, along with, as per usual, lots of autistic rambling.]

Everyone calls the SARX055 the “Baby Snowflake,” but ain’t nothin’ baby about it!  The dial is gorgeous.  Case and bracelet are titanium.  Everyone complains about Seiko bracelets - supposedly they feel cheap and jangly.  I don’t know, man, they feel fantastic to me - certainly more comfortable than the bracelets on my Swiss watches!  Every one of my Omegas is on a strap of some sort; meanwhile, all my Seiko’s I keep on their bracelets!  

The value on offer here is unrivaled.  For ~$1,000

• The SARX055 is exceptionally finished
• The titanium case and bracelet are gorgeous, with alternating polishing and brushing
• The dial doesn’t look like snow to me, the way the dial of the SBGA211 does.  Instead, it strikes me more as like the “shoji” pattern found on the GS SBGW267

[Look at that dial!]

The only real difference between the SARX055 and any given Grand Seiko that I might be able to detect is the underlying movement.  The SARX055’s Caliber 6R15 beats at 21,600 vph, while a typical GS movement is 28,800 or 36,000 or 117,964,800 for spring drive.  But, let’s say for a moment that you don’t care so much about the movement.  Let’s say that all you care about, with regard to the movement, is build quality and reliability.  If that’s the case, then you could save yourself $5,200 relative to the Snowflake!

"But the movement, Omeganut!  It doesn't do the watch service.  It fails to capture the ephemeral nature of passing time."  Ah, yes.  The movement.

I wrote this in another thread, so I’m just gonna plagiarize myself gratuitously here:  Every enthusiast community is the same - certain things get fetishized, and somehow those fetishes become the community's shibboleths, with which to weed out heretics.

And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took  him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
— Judges 12:5–6[11]

Let's use the car enthusiast community as a way to illustrate this point:  The shibboleths in the car enthusiast community, to any outside observer, are prima facie outlandish!  Here are a couple examples from Porsche fanboydom:

• Porsche 911 fanboys - "Air-cooled is where it's at, man..."  Uh...  why?  "Just, you know, that's when the 911 was purer.  Men were men, and the sheep were scared."  Except, it turns out that with the purer driving experience, you're prone to snap-oversteer, given that the engine is in the wrong place - the rear - and there's no computerization to prevent your high likelihood of death, which is why the air-cooled 911 was always called "the Widowmaker”

[Apparently, the 911 in the top photo, which will spin out of control and kill you the first chance it gets, is superior to the 2022 GT3 RS, because the former is "air cooled" and pure, while the latter is not]

• Porsche Cayman fanboys - “The new 718 Cayman engine sucks!  I prefer the old school naturally-aspirated, flat-6 all the way, man..."  Uh...  why?  "The glorious sound of the flat-6, when you hit redline at 8,000 RPM!  The boxer-4 engine in the new 718 Cayman sucks.  It’s not a real Porsche engine, because it’s 4-cylinder!”  Hmmm…  I get that the naturally-aspirated engine sounds awesome at 8,000 RPM, except who the f*ck drives around town at 8,000 RPM?  Given the Cayman's incredibly long gearing, you'll hit 80 mph in second gear, and get your license suspended.  Beyond that, naturally-aspirated engines make no low-down torque whatsoever, so the Toyota Sienna minivan is always gonna take you off the line.  So, mostly, you’re crapping all over the new 718 Cayman’s 4-cylinder engine because it’s got the same layout as a Subaru engine, and if you’re buying a Porsche, you don’t want anything to do with any engine that has the same underlying configuration as Subaru…  even though the 718 Cayman’s engine is more reliable, has low-down torque, and gets better gas mileage than your vaunted flat-6?  Let’s be honest, you want low-end torque in daily driving.  The only time a naturally-aspirated setup makes sense is if you’re driving your race car at Le Mans.  So... your love for the flat-6 engine is just for posing and pretending that you're a race car driver, when in reality, you're making the 5-mile drive to Whole Foods to pick up the Brown Cow Yogurt your wife asked for

[The Minivan has got more low-end torque than the Cayman with the flat-6!]

Now, as outsiders, can we all agree that these Porsche fanboys are utterly ridiculous?  I mean, with no dog in the fight, we immediately see how asinine the contorted logic of Porsche fanboydom is, yeah?  But, what if we turn the lens on watch fanboydom?

• Watch enthusiasts - "The movement in Watch A is better than the movement in Watch B, so get Watch A”  

Uh…  what does it mean that the movement in Watch A is “better”?  And why?  

I mean, so long as the movement inside a watch is reliable and cheap and easy to maintain and service, why the f*ck should I care about the movement???  I get that the watch manufacturers want us to care, given that Swatch Group tried to stop providing ETAs to their competitors in a bid to kill them off (but the Swiss government stepped in to prevent free enterprise), and now everyone's gotta make their own sh*tty movements and use lots of marketing to trick us into thinking that in-house is glorious, when in fact it sucks.  

Given all that, at this point, I couldn't care less about a watch's movement so long as it's reliable and cheap and easy to service.  +/- 60 seconds per day?  +/- 120 seconds per day?  Couldn't care less.  There is literally nothing in my life at this point that requires me to be within 3 minutes of accuracy.  Hell, not even probably 15 minutes!  I mean, I get that Apollo 13 would have disintegrated or shot off into the void if the astronauts didn't burn fuel for exactly 14 seconds...  but in my own case, when I'm microwaving my hot cocoa, it can be off a few seconds here or there, and it’ll still have that delicious chocolatey taste.

[You think the hot chocolate cares about COSC certification?]

So, would you / could you do it?  Would you be able to ignore the movement in favor of the exquisite dial, the fit, and the finish, and the comfortable bracelet to save yourself $5,200 off a GS SBGA211 Snowflake?  Or is the fear of losing one’s credentials as a watch-enthusiast-in-good-standing too great, for with regard to our community’s shibboleths, it would expose the fact that you "could not frame to pronounce it (shibboleth) right."