Is High Accuracy Quartz high horology?

Yes it is!  GS takes extraordinary measures to use the highest accuracy quartz to regulate their watches. It’s more science than engineering, but still very impressive. 
 

On a collection level, however, quartz does not have the same romanticism as mechanical. 

I’m not sure I would try to label it as “high horology”.  I believe it is great technology and looking at things like spring drive are amazing. I try To focus more on what I like and what interests me. 

Depends on your definition.

If "high horology" means "high quality watchmaking", then yes.

Indeed. Chronometry is perhaps a better description however GS have blurred these lines with the Spring Drive. My thoughts are that you buy a watch for a variety of reasons, either the purpose, dial, movement etc. Chronometry I think links more into digital watches, when the engine is connected to a drive train then for me it leans more in to the ‘half pregnant‘ world for me. The Citizen 0100 calibre blows my mind due to the shear accuracy of the drive train.

I beleive the answer to your question is yes.  

When quartz first came out it was marketed as top shelf and cost more than mechanical in some cases.  As time went on so many cheap quartz watches were made its almost like a plague on the earth.  Almost everyone you know has a pile of cheesey quartz watches that "need a battery."  

High end quartz still exists, there is a big differece between this and cheap cheesy mass produced crapola.

I agree completely with this, it certainly isn’t as romantic as a well appointed mechanical movement so has a cost limit for me. I genuinely want a calibre 0100 from Citizen but the cheapest is about £5000 so not for me, I would rather have mechanicals in my collection at this price point….but I really really want one grrrrr

100% agree with @SurferJohn 

i very much lean towards this. The high end stuff is mind boggling and way different to the movements that cost $1 to make

Wow, that's the Seiko Dolce SACM171. It's a beautiful sleeper watch that seems to have been overlooked and forgotten in the Seiko lineup for some reason. 😔

The 8J movement, from what I've read, is a thermo-compensated and serviceable quartz movement with 7 jewels. Good stuff!

That Dolce also has a sapphire crystal and diashield coating on the case. It pairs with the 24mm Seiko Exceline SWDL209 which has similar specs. Together they make a charmingly overkill, sub-GS quartz couple watch.

I think @cornfedksboy and @SurferJohn nailed it in their explanations.

I love and respect HAQ movements. They truly produce some crazy results. But high horology? Probably not. I associate high horology with truly insane mechanical complications. HAQ just takes something that is already pretty accurate to begin with (a quartz movement) and uses technology to make it more accurate. It’s worthy of praise, but not high horology. Is radio synchronization high horology? 

The high accuracy comes not only from the analysis and control of the crystal but from thermal compensation and the very highly accurate mechanical drive train. If it was just the quartz then they would all be accurate to +/-1spy 

Credor did a similar watch 8j81-6A30. As it gets the 8j8 designation it means +/-5spy which is cool, by all accounts they still use this in Credor however I can’t seem to get that info confirmed.

Eroticism too for some it seems 🤔

Are your one of those: "silicon hairspring? Ugh, that's getting scary close to an Apple Watch!!"? 

Agree with you but I'm not sure a machine built $20 mechanical movements is necessarily better than a machine built quartz movement.

The 8j and 9f movements used in credo and GS are hand-built.

Ah the SACM171. I have one of these as well as an sbgx263. As good as the 8j movement is I'm not sure it's as good as the 9f. They are both great movements better than any quartz you'll find in a Cartier or any other Swiss watch.

Like any proper english word Horology has multiple meanings:

1. the study of time and timekeeping and

2. the craft of watch and clock making.

Under definition 1, high precision quartz is the only high horology watchmaking today

Under definition 2, high precision quartz probably isn't high horology.

So just pick the definition that suits your position.

"...just takes something that is already pretty accurate to begin with and uses technology to make it more accurate."

And that is different to making one of the superior mechanical movements how?

It's high horology by either definition.

They aren’t, which is why a highly accurate mechanical movement isn’t high horology either. a Chronometer, sure. But not high horology. How can you compare a Spring Drive with a minute repeater or a perpetual calendar? A perpetual calendar has to account for a 1461 day cycle to cover leap years.. with GEARS.

It’s fine to be impressed with the engineering of a Spring Drive. It’s remarkable. And you are entitled to cast as broad a net as you want. You will never convince me that a Spring Drive is high horology.

By definition, it is not high horology. The label haute horlogerie was coined in the '70's/'80's to differentiate between costly traditional mechanical timepieces and less expensive then novel quartz watches. It was one of the desperate means that mechanical watchmakers grasped at to fend off extinction due to the quartz crisis. Now, ironically, quartz wants to horn in on the nomenclature. It's like when the parvenues wanted to break into the "400" back in the gilded age.

Which definition?

The definition promulgated by Académie horlogère des créateurs indépendants (AHCI) at its first exhibition (1985) in Le Locle. Here's their declaration of purpose: "We are driven by a desire to preserve the traditions of watchmaking and understanding of the danger that independent watchmakers, the guardians of these traditions, could disappear as individuals in big brands and corporations. To resist the current negative situation {i.e. the quartz crisis and its aftermath], it became necessary to advertise the activities of independent watchmakers, as well as to support their discoveries, inventions, and creative approach to the development of watchmaking art." The label "haute horlogerie" was very clearly intended to distinguish "traditional" watchmaking from quartz/electrical/etc.

Thank you for sharing this, it’s very interesting. I’m not sure it’s a definite definition but certainly shows the thinking that was happening back then. Fast forward though and we have lots of categories we need to consider. What does it mean and if I defined high horology is it now undermined. Is it innovation? The finishing of a movement? accuracy? And if so should we only recognise this when it’s a mechanical watch from Switzerland? If so there are Chinese watches with decorative movements and tourbillons and they are just as accurate. If the Swiss saw that coming I think they would have tweaked their statement to protect their interests from others including mechanical I.e. the cancellation of the Geneva Observatory trails in 1972 when the Japanese had 7 of the top 10 watches?? So today I think it’s a legitimate question. Grand Seiko with the spring drive is technically excellent , well finished and accurate movement. I would say this is solid horology (in my opinion) I have a feeling that they are only going to be ramping up into complications so we are likely to see something very special from them soon. If we take Citizen with the calibre 0100. This is the most accurate watch in the world. It’s made to the very highest standards including the interface between the gear train and the quartz movement. To me this is a highly complex watch and finished to the very highest standards. As we have seen with Chinese manufacturers their standards are improving exponentially however they are simply light years away from replicating the 0100. Feels like high horology to me but I understand why there is so much discussion and disagreement.

If you’re going to take that declaration seriously, and pick out the “traditional” part of the declaration… then you also have to take the “independent” and “individuals” and not “big brands and corporations” part of the declaration just as seriously. If anything, the declaration focuses on that even more.

That would mean nothing made by the Rolex, Richemont, Swatch, or LVMH groups could possibly be high horology, since nothing could be more “big brands and corporations” than the gigantic groups that hold 80% market share. To qualify it must be only be by independents who operate as individuals.

One must remember that in 1985, the watch industry was much different than it is today. Rolex was not a "corporation", it was an independent watchmaker. So were A. Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Vacheron Constantin, among others. The "big brands and corporations" of 1985 would have been Seiko and Citizen (one of the first companies whose watchmaking assembly line was fully automated). These were the vandals at the doors of "haute horlogerie", and the term had a very specific meaning back in 1985. Seiko even considered buying Omega around that time, so fear of the "big corporations" was very real.

What I’m saying is that if you’re going to compare it to the gilded age, then the irony is not quartz but that the industry still pretends to be “haute hologerie” while consolidating to kill off independents. The “big corporations” are already here, killing the industry in a different way, but they just happen to have come within, surprise surprise.

4 conglomerates own 80% of the Swiss watch industry; the biggest of them literally kills off independent watchmakers by slow-starving them of genuine parts, and buying off their own franchised dealer chains to establish complete dominance, and funnels off young aspiring watchmakers in being the sole sponsor of watchmaking schools.

If there is to be a revival of haute hologerie today, it should be against the big four, and a revival of microbrands, not against the 1970s conception of “omg Japanese quartz!!!”

You are right on target. Irony -- that's the keyword of the day. “Haute hologerie” was a phrase once used as part of a campaign for the Swiss mechanical community to survive. Now, as you rightly say, it's jargon used to aggrandize the holy trinity and the big boys.

I wish I had more confidence in the microbrands, much as I love many of them. The problem is that the movements all come from the big boys, so there's not going to be any "haute horologie" coming from them, only inventive design and striking aesthetics (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Very rich conversation gents, I would have loved to have bought you a coffee to discuss it further. So I’m not sure if I got to the end of my quest of finding out if the Citizen calibre 0100 is high horology or not. It’s seems an illusion or at least an elusive term we use to apply randomly to impressive watches from the Swiss and the odd, recognised master watchmaker like Roger Smith who has further refined the co-axel escapement. Grand Seiko is perhaps in there with the Kodo Constant-Force Tourbillon. But to my mind innovation and complication is a driving factor not polishing a chamfering or engraving, although pretty it’s not a game changer and can be done by many if trained correctly. BUT….to invent a mechanism that can accurately monitor and apply this to drive a gear train, without being affected by normal working temperatures or outside radio connections to 1 second per year to me is witchcraft. When I saw this spec my chin dropped. Interestingly I have a Seiko Dolce with the 8J41, is supposed to be approx 10 seconds per year however in just under 11 months it’s lost just over a second! Just incredible performance but it’s not in in a package that fits the bill.