{"id":29314,"date":"2021-04-16T10:58:43","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T08:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swisswatchfamily.com\/?p=29314"},"modified":"2021-04-16T11:51:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T09:51:39","slug":"blast-hourstriker-ulysse-nardin-breaks-the-sound-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swisswatchfamily.com\/en\/blast-hourstriker-ulysse-nardin-breaks-the-sound-barrier\/","title":{"rendered":"Blast Hourstriker: Ulysse Nardin breaks the sound barrier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Before we wore time, we heard it. Clocks chimed in the heart of every medieval city. Clocks made by brilliant craftsmen who would, through miniaturisation, create domestic clocks, and then hand-held timepieces, capable, despite their small size, to strike the passing hours. Inspired by watchmaking\u2019s past and the possibility of moving musical timekeeping into the future, Ulysse Nardin wants you to hear time again, not read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mechanics of power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It has been several years in the making but Ulysse Nardin has found a new way to make sound. Introducing the Blast Hourstriker, an innovative new striking watch that breaks barriers in sound technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This art of marking the time with music has always been a part of Ulysse Nardin\u2019s technical arsenal. It was revived in the 1980s, under the impetus of Rolf Schnyder and given a new lease of life in 2019 when the Swiss Manufacture collaborated with French audio technology company Devialet on the next level of watchmaking acoustics, which was launched in the Classico Hourstriker Phantom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year Patrick Pruniaux, Ulysse Nardin\u2019s CEO, has again made the choice to make sound central to the brand\u2019s drive for more futuristic ways to reinterpret traditional watchmaking crafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ordinarily, to generate the sound needed to mark the passing hours, the hammers strike a wire gong wrapped around the movement to which it is attached. The acoustic wave spreads into the middle of the mechanism and is partly absorbed by it. In these conditions, the sound heard lacks power and its harmonics are partially muffled by the material of the timepiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Blast Hourstriker, Ulysse Nardin\u2019s team of engineers decided to set themselves two challenges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n