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Addressing my anxieties over the cost and possible damage (when the watch is in transit) for servicing an automatic watch, a process that often involves mailing the watch overseas, Ulysses writes:
It's interesting isn't it? Nobody ever really talks about servicing quartz watches. OK, they're not reliant on a balance wheel, but there are other gears that must suffer from wear and tear after a while. Despite that, i've never had to send one in for service other than when an incompetent watchmaker damaged a movement.
Japanese mechanical movements are known to be quite durable and many get by just fine without ever being serviced. It's not as though it will suddenly explode after five years - it just might not keep time as well as it did, in which case you could skip a full service and just get it regulated and if necessary, lubricated.
Arguably, quartz watches are superior time-keepers and are more durable than their mechanical counterparts. We cling on to archaic technology because of how it makes us feel, not because it is necessarily the best choice, and it doesn't matter if it is mechanical watches or old sports cars that can't be driven a couple of miles without breaking down.
Herculodge Response
As a watch obsessive, I find myself climbing the ladder of luxury and asking myself, "Do I really want to buy a high-end quartz watch? Does quartz even "have a soul" like an automatic? You'll see this matter of "soul" on this Rolex forum regarding the purchase of Omega quartz watches.
Ulyssess' words hit home. Part of me is tempted to sell my 4 autos (keep my SRP637 because it's so "cheap") and get an Omega Seamaster wave 41mm quartz. Or I could get another Ecozilla and put on a Super Engineer II. If that were the case, my collection would be thus:
1. Seiko SBBN017 quartz Tuna on Super Engineer
2. Seiko SBDL021 solar quartz Fieldmaster on Shark Mesh
3. Citizen Promaster Sky Black solar quartz
4. Citizen Promaster Sky Silver solar quartz
5. Ecozilla original (solar quartz)
6. Ecozilla on Shark Mesh (solar quartz)
7. Seiko SRP637 (automatic that I "would ride into the ground")
8. Benarus Moray Dart
9. Orient Saturation Diver
10. Citizen Grand Touring
Possible Future Watch
Omega Seamaster Wave Dial 41mm quartz or Ecozilla on Super Engineer and then my collection would be complete. Or a Seiko SRP307. And then my collection will be complete.
It's weird making this list. It's like I let practical concerns compromise my Watch Quest. I would miss the intoxication and craziness of it all. That's the "feeling" that Ulysses is talking about.
To lose that "feeling" would be to experience a sort of death.
I was excited about the new Sangean WR-15 radio. Unfortunately, John cannot recommend it:
I received my WR-15 two days ago. Unfortunately, I can't recommend the radio and will likely return it. AM reception is just plain bad. My Sangean WR-1, set up right next to it for comparison, clearly outperformed the WR-15 in sensitivity and selectivity across the dial. I had planned on putting it up against my Panasonic RF-2200 and GE Superadio 1 to compare against those radios but quickly realized there was little point of doing so given that it failed my first relatively low-bar comparison. I live in a pretty dense urban environment with a lot of radio noise, so perhaps that's affecting performance and it would fare better in another setting. But I have a lot of other radios that can pull in AM stations better than the WR-15 can.
FM performance was better but still inferior to my WR-1 (again, not a very high bar). My quick test of a radio's FM capabilities is seeing how it pulls in those low-wattage college, indy and NPR stations that tend to reside in the very low end of the dial, and here the WR-15 didn't fare so well. I was able to pull in several hard-to-grab college stations on my WR-1 that eluded the WR-15. For the big blowtorch FM stations though, the WR-15 pulled them in without difficulty and sounded great doing so. The speaker is great for a unit this size. This radio therefore might suit your needs if that's where you live on the dial. It's doesn't for me (I like the hard-to-grab community college jazz station -- a tough target for most of my radios, unfortunately).
One other characteristic of the WR-15 worth mentioning is its apparent channel-locking tuning, which I find very jarring and unpleasant. The radio tunes relatively quietly across the dial and doesn't engage full volume until it has detected a channel and is tuned (i.e.the green LED light is lit). This results in some unpleasant (to me) dial surfing, as tuning is very quiet when not "tuned" but then jumping in volume when the radio is locked on a station. This apparent channel-locking function also results in having to tune well past a locked station for the radio to relinquish its hold on it. I'm not technically savvy enough to identify what exactly this is, but tuning in and out of stations is abrupt and jarring on this radio. I immediately missed the quiet analog hiss of being out of tune that we're familiar with from most radios.
In sum, this strikes me as a radio where concerns about its aesthetics and speaker quality (both good, in my opinion) took priority over the radio's fundamental performance. This is definitely not an AM DX'er, and FM listeners can do better elsewhere.
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