My current GADA is my Seiko SPB239. Not $1000 retail but I did picked up one for under that price.

Just goes with any dress and works on many straps. If I'm going to really suggest a budget GADA watch then I would always recommend the Seiko 5 dressKX.

https://www.seikomods.com/shop/ct110/

There are lot of aftermarket sapphire crystals available for the Samurai model. Flat sapphire crystal works the best with the sharp case. Choose the type of AR you want.

Do simple regulations to start with and learn, part of the hobby and it gets interesting. Use a toothpick to start with to move the regulating studs, they are super delicate so be very careful and take uour time....you can easily end up damaging the hairspring. Don't use a metal tip scewrdiver, it may have a magnet tip which can throw off the hairspring. Make sure you grease your watch gaskets and place them correctly when you screw the caseback on especially dive watches.

Don't be set on getting 0 beat error while you regulate. There are acceptable tolerances and it may make it difficult to adjust the speed once you find a mean value from a set number of positions. Any where between 0.1-1ms is acceptable to most manufactures standards. My Tudor BB58 ran +3 second and had 0.4ms beat error face up and that watch was COSC certified. So there are quite a few tolerances and it varies from movement to movement.

Also few other things that may throw off the readings on the timegrapher is checking the watch with a closed caseback especially dive watches as it may not give you the most accurate reading and in most cases the basic timegraphers have mics that might not be the most sensitive and the readings tend to be more accurate with an open caseback or with the movement taken out.

Thats +17 seconds a day and it is within Seiko's stated tolerance. If its a new watch, give it one or two months for the movement to settle and measure the accuracy then and get it regulated if you want it to run at more tighter tolerance.

I have had mine for about 5 months and it ran about +4 seconds out of the box which is very good and has been the same to date. 6R35 movement usually have wide tolerance range and depending on your luck, you may end up with ones that runs much tighter. My Willard has the same movement and runs +16 seconds a day and I have to regulate it someday.

Oooooh....got to throw mine too on the blue tropic strap ❄

Have tried mine on a blue waffle but not yet on a tropic.

I trying to find time to go to the Watch Week event. Will check Doxa out for sure and see if they have this model on display.

I won't call it an upgrade if you are going from a Khaki Field Mechanical. The specs are the same except for the mineral crystal. Its is quite small and recommend you trying it in person.

And you can find these for even lower than $600. Definitely overpriced at retail and even after some discounts. Right now you may find good deals.