Left: This certified authentic Used Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Watch, with the Model Number: 126598TRU, has a Yellow Gold/Diamonds 40 mm Round Case with Screw Down Crown and a Gem Set. This Men's Rolex Cosmograph Daytona has an attractive Diamond Pave Dial with Gems Dial Markers. The certified Swiss tested Rolex Automatic Movement will keep perfect time for you. The elegantly designed Rolex Yellow Gold with will look great on your wrist.
Right: Timex Men's Waterbury Classic Chrono 40mm Stainless Steel Quartz Dress Watch with Leather Strap. Reviewed to be one of the best well-priced mecha-quartz watches.
If we plug in the phrase "Rolex vs. Timex" into Google, we'll see that there have been a number of articles written about this topic aimed at wristwatch hobbyists that compare and contrast things like history, the products, features, and prices (like this). For the purpose of our discussion here, the actual brands are of could not too important; these are mere archetypes - Rolex the Swiss brand that caters to the prestige luxury market, while Timex is an American company (originally started as the Waterbury Clock Company in 1854, these days American-Dutch) known to produce mass-market time pieces for the "common man"; to satisfy the needs of kids, the athlete, and yes, even dipping its toes into the luxury market though nothing like the Rolex brand price-wise. As per their classic slogan suggesting the device is meant for the conditions of daily life, the Timex - "It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking."
Over the years on this blog, I've touched on the ideas behind luxury products - here and here for example. We've also discussed the wine-tasting pursuit compared to audiophilia, but I think there is an even better analogy we can make when we look at something like the wristwatch collector (horophile) hobby. Since both audio products and watches are products of technological evolution, I believe there are similarities when it comes to the trajectory of these products, the industries behind their production, the consumers who buy them, the way they are portrayed in advertising (including in reviews) and social sentiment.
So grab a comfortable seat, maybe get a nice beverage, let's take some time to think and discuss...
To start, I think it's fair to say that humanity, through technological evolution has long had to balance two potentially contradictory desires: the pursuit of functional perfection and the attainment of beauty beyond function. This "tension" is evident in fields as diverse as watchmaking (horology) and audio reproduction.
For both, the technology began with the pursuit of accuracy. For watches, the goal was precise timekeeping from the sundials of old that failed on cloudy days to modern atomic clocks like the recently reported NIST Ion clock with precision of better than 1/30,000,000,000 second per year; this means the clock would not have gained or lost a second if started at the Big Bang! For hi-fi, it was faithful reproduction of recorded sounds from the very first Edison cylinder to modern high bit-depth and sample rate digital precision of today's DACs.
[Note that I'm talking about faithful reproduction of the "recorded sound", the "PRODUCTION" as discussed here. Accuracy can only be as good as what was created by the artists, the engineers, the studio, the process that etched the grooves on your vinyl or assembled those bits on digital media. Accuracy does not imply some kind of idealistic "absolute" accuracy to the sound in the studio when the artists sang and played their instruments, nor some kind of subjective mental accuracy of whether something is "natural" sounding or not to you or me!]
For both time-keeping and audio fidelity, as we have seen technical barriers fall and accuracy widely attainable, the industries surrounding these products have evolved into different variants. Luxury brands like Rolex in watchmaking and boutique "High-End" Audio manufacturers (of which there are many) shifted their emphasis away from utilitarian accuracy toward craftsmanship, exclusivity, and prestige. Meanwhile, more modest brands such as Timex in watches or mid-priced "pro audio" and consumer gear continued to focus on functional performance at accessible prices.
Let's break these ideas down further.
I. Pursuit of Accuracy: Temporal and audio fidelity as foundational goals
For centuries, the primary concern of watchmakers was how precisely their instruments could keep time. This was not simply for convenience, but it was a matter of survival at times such as when explorers were navigating the seas. The problem of accurately calculating longitude at sea, practically solved by the 18th century by John Harrison’s marine chronometers, evolved during the Age of Discovery.
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| Prague Astronomical Clock - built circa 1410. Original accuracy up to 30 minutes error daily! Since 1866, much improved mechanism down to 1 second/day drift only. |
As far as I am aware, nobody needs an atomic clock on their wrist but there should be a highly acceptable level of accuracy in order to certify that the device can be called a worthy "chronometer". In modern Swiss watchmaking, the standard of accuracy became institutionalized in the form of the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), an independent organization that certifies watches as chronometers if they meet stringent precision benchmarks since 1973. A COSC-certified chronometer must keep time within -4 to +6 seconds per day, tested in multiple positions and temperatures. While this standard is far from near-perfect accuracy (and there are other definitions of accuracy like Rolex's Superlative Chronometer designation with +/-2s daily accuracy), it is one way to set a respectable benchmark for mechanical watches at least, grounding these devices within the original utilitarian purpose: measuring time reliably. Yes, even with luxury products, measurements are important as verification of quality.
In the same way, early high-fidelity audio was driven by the pursuit of sonic accuracy. The very term “high fidelity” implies closeness to the source ("transparency"), minimizing distortion and coloration in playback. Among the discussions of technically-oriented audiophiles, no doubt we've seen talk about DACs and amps with low noise, low total harmonic distortion (THD), speakers with well-controlled frequency extension across the audible range (typically 20-20kHz), and recording methods that could capture music with minimal added noise, and maximal dynamic range with little added distortion.
As far as I am aware, the audiophile industry doesn't have a standard measurement lab like the COSC where devices are certified "hi-fi", but I suppose measurements by independent reviewers using calibrated devices and speaker testing with the Klippel robot are the informal, but highly accurate, equivalent for us.
II. Luxury Drift: Accuracy Meets Marketing?
As technologies matured, something curious but perhaps not unexpected given the nature of human psychology happened. Technical "accuracy" ceased to be the sole selling point, and luxury markets at least tried to reshape consumer perceptions.
Before much of the audiophile measurement wars, in the watchmaking world, the 1960s saw the phenomenon of jewel inflation. Mechanical watches use small jewels (usually sapphires and rubies in higher-end watches, often lab-created these days), stronger than metal, as bearings to reduce friction and wear. A typical high quality watch requires around 17 jewels. Yet in a bid to market luxury and supposed superiority, companies began advertising watches with 40, 50, or even 100 jewels—many of which served no mechanical purpose whatsoever (like the Waltham 100). These watches did not achieve better temporal accuracy; in fact, their performance was often no better than modestly-jeweled movements. But the consumer’s eye was caught by the inflated jewel counts, a symbol of luxury, another tier of exclusivity, and assumed engineering progress. Ultimately, the International Organization of Standards (ISO) got involved in association with the watch industry to publish the ISO 1112 standard to prohibit the advertising of non-functioning jewels by 1974.
For us in the audiophile world, we've seen our versions of technical hype as fidelity benchmarks became easier to achieve. In the 1970's when consumers were still strongly attached to the idea of high-fidelity based on technical accuracy, this desire for technical proficiency pushed the marketing towards amplifier "THD Wars". At some point, the consumer realized that amps that achieve down to 0.001% THD (-100dB) sounded no different than 0.1% THD (-60dB) in even audiophile room usage, so interest dissipated. Other questionable practices like grossly inflated wattage claims (1000W PMPO - Peak Music Power Output, baby!!!) resulted in standardization like IEC 60268-3 for analog amps first published I believe in 1969. As for other ways to create the aura of luxury, we've seen manufacturers emphasize extravagant materials, exotic designs, create impressions that a certain "Class" might be better than another (eg. Class A amps better than Class D? R2R DACs better than ΣΔ chip DACs? DSD better than PCM? etc.). While certain Class products can be more difficult to make, thus cost more, or simply "over-engineered" and scarce, there's usually no evidence to claim broad audible differences (blinding essential) if modern measurements demonstrated equivalency.
Multi-hundred-pound amplifiers housed in aeronautical grade metals, extravagantly rare handmade phono cartridges, massive turntables supposedly created to isolate from the last iota of environmental vibration (but never able to fix LP off-center defects, dust, or wow-and-flutter anomalies on the plastic disc itself), speakers of stone and single-billet aluminum, and cables advertised as cryogenically treated, perhaps "actively" shielded with hose-like girth and geometrical windings, have become hallmarks of featured audiophile luxury today. Like the jewel-inflated watches, these products typically deliver no measurable improvements in accuracy.
Luxury drift, in both watches and audio, has pushed us to a point in which accuracy - though still valued - is no longer the sole criterion for quality or desirability. Arguably, for many, it's not even the primary criterion anymore despite questionable claims by some audio enthusiasts that they can still "hear" a difference. Luxury markets pursuing status and aesthetics can at some level dissociate themselves from the utilitarian ethos that had birthed the industries.
III. The Quartz Crisis and the Digital Audio Revolution
Although Electric Watches had been sold since 1959, the first being the Hamilton Electric:
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| You might recognize this watch design in the movie MIB. |
This design remained a mechanical movement that replaced the power-source mainspring with the electric battery. A great innovation which meant we didn't need to regularly wind our watches any more or ensure we wear the watch regularly if it's an automatic winding mechanism (typically ~2 days of power reserve). Just change the watch battery every few years.
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| Electric Timex 1965. |
When it came to time accuracy, the defining historical rupture in horology came with the Quartz Crisis of the 1970s into the 1980s. Quartz watches, using the piezoelectric effect to vibrate quartz crystals, delivered breathtaking accuracy compared to mechanical oscillators. As discussed earlier with the COSC standard, mechanical watches are expected to drift several seconds per day; quartz watches deviated only a few seconds per month. COSC themselves set minimum requirements for quartz wristwatches as +/-0.07s/d at 23°C. Furthermore, quartz technology was cheap to produce, resulting in the proliferation of mass-market brands like Seiko and Casio (first digital display wristwatch 1974) delivering both precision and very reasonable prices.
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| Longines Ultra-Quartz - first commercially announced quartz watch in 1969. Unfortunately unable to bring into production on time. |
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| The Japanese Seiko Astron 35SQ is remembered as the first, publicly available quartz watch - released Christmas Day, 1969. At release, the 18K gold version retailed at US$3000. |
For Swiss watchmakers founded on the mechanical tradition, this shift was an existential threat. Their raison d’être - accurate, high quality mechanical mechanisms - had been commoditized.
In just 3 years, by 1972, that $125 Timex Model 976512 quartz watch above would easily outperform $2,000 mechanical Swiss chronometers. This "crisis" decimated the Swiss watch industry from about 1600 companies in 1970 down to 600 by the early '80s. Understandably, the luxury mechanical watch industry had to survive not by competing on accuracy, but by redefining its identity and market. So, over time mechanical watches needed to become symbols of craftsmanship, artistry, and heritage. The appeal of a Rolex (Omega, Patek Philippe, Breitling, TAG Heuer, Blancpain, Breguet, Vacheron Constantin, Longines, etc.) is that it's sold as a handcrafted marvel of engineering tradition, an origin story couched in cultural cachet and aesthetic beauty.
The Quartz Crisis has an analogue in audio: the digital audio revolution. With the advent of compact discs (CD) in 1982 (remember, "Pure, Perfect Sound - Forever"), release of external digital-to-analog converters (DACs) shortly after by the time the S/PDIF interface became more prominent, and eventually digital streaming, much of audio fidelity became trivially easy to achieve. Is it any wonder then that within 10 years from 1980 to 1990, LP sales in the US collapsed from over 300M units per year to under 25M? Though we speak of a vinyl resurgence in the past 15 to 20 years, in 2024 the RIAA counted 43.6M units sold, this is still a 15% shadow of the former glory set more than 40 years ago when the world population was only half of what it is today!
[Notice that there has been a flattening of sales from 2023 at 43.2M to 43.6M in 2024, let's see what physical sales look like for 2025 when the numbers come in. A peak in number of units sold would not be surprising.]
Despite all the concerns by audiophiles, objective evidence clearly shows that a modestly priced CD or DAC today (or even by the late '80s, early '90s) will perform at levels of distortion and noise well below what is audibly necessary in the vast majority of situations (as usual, consistent with previous testing, try a blind listening test for yourself). Similarly, we have seen progress with amplifiers (ie. Class D), loudspeakers, and of course headphones in the expanding "head-fi" space. High fidelity - the original goal of the audiophile - is no longer the exclusive domain of very expensive equipment. It has become democratized for those in the middle class of the developed world who show interest in these products for decades now, just as quartz democratized wristwatch timing accuracy.
Faced with this reality, the audiophile market has had to evolve over the last few decades. Manufacturers and reviewers could no longer tout gains in objective results with each generation of product so they shifted from an objective emphasis into subjective opinions. Writers shifted from talking about the characteristics of technical "high-fidelity" sound to using flowery descriptions of "musicality", "warmth", "presence", "PRaT" and other emotional qualities they found appealing to impress potential buyers.
[The pursuit of "euphonic" sound as defined by one's idiosyncratic preferences is often at odds with accuracy to the point where these days, some audiophiles will happily boost their bass substantially beyond neutral and claim that sounds more "natural", and a "flat" treble reproduction may be experienced as "dull". As I've discussed before, the pursuit of "euphonophilia" is absolutely fine - so long as we understand that's the intent. In order to 'calibrate' one's ears for neutrality, I believe training is necessary.]
When we look at the glossy magazines like Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and Hi-Fi+, it's not hard to see that they primarily cater to products marketed not for their measurable, objective, technical, superiority, but for their artisanal craftsmanship, exotic designs, or perhaps some kind of emotional appeal for the brand often linked with an origin story from the company's "iconic" founder or even folkloreish theory they've decided to develop.
Just as Rolex no longer competes with Timex on accuracy, as a generalization, luxury audio brands like McIntosh, Linn, Magico, Sonus Faber, Wilson, Burmester, Børresen, are not really in competition with the likes of Topping, SMSL, JBL, Schiit, ELAC, countless other mid-priced or pro studio gear primarily on the basis of sonic fidelity. Differences in objective fidelity remains starkest when we compare luxury tube, vinyl playback gear with modestly priced modern hi-res digital, solid state electronics. Justifications for preferences inevitably are wrapped up in psychological factors such as identity, faith, ritual, and prestige - or just plain subjective "euphonic" preference for a type of coloration/distortion.
IV. The Divide: Function and Aesthetics
What emerges from this comparison and historical developments is certainly not a bad thing in my opinion. With technological maturity comes an opportunity for manufacturers and consumers to choose what kinds of devices are developed based on different priorities.
On one side, I suppose we could label some consumers and hobbyists as functionalists, who remain focused on the original utilitarian purpose: accuracy in watches, fidelity in audio. For them, a nice enough looking Timex or a modern active reference studio monitor (maybe something like the JBL Master Reference 705P, US$1000 each, paired with some powered subs like dual 12" SVS SB-1000 Pro to fill in <60Hz) could be seen as the pinnacle of what they'd want or even ever need; modest, affordable, but precise.
On the other hand some hobbyists will approach these devices as aesthetes, who see watches and audio equipment as being more than tools. Viewed from this perspective, a Rolex or a luxury amplifier is an object of art, ritual, and personal identity. Its value transcends mere utilitarian function.
While these perspective are the extremes and I suspect most of us set our sights somewhere in the middle, neither would be inherently wrong. Functionalists rightly point out that a $50 Timex quartz watch tells time more accurately than a $30k Rolex Daytona, and a $500 Topping DAC these days can easily be more transparent than a $30k model. Aesthetes are free to express their personal/psychological desires to own luxury goods that provide pleasure - tactile, cultural, and emotional - that transcend measurements. Sure, winding up a mechanical chronometer, or lowering the needle onto a vinyl record, offer ritualistic satisfactions that no quartz watch or streaming DAC can ever replicate.
[Again, just please don't tell me that your mechanical wind-up watch or that vinyl playback system is more accurate or "high-fidelity", OK? Because that's not objectively true and claiming falsehoods in an era of misinformation will result in honest corrective pushback from many passionate audiophiles.😀]
Yet the analogy also serves as a caution. Jewel inflation in the 1960s misled consumers with meaningless metrics, and today we still see all kinds of audiophile marketing promoting dubious claims - mystical tweaks, implausible 'improved' audible jitter, unlikely lower noise, all with no evidence - that add nothing except excuses for charging a higher price. I can absolutely respect genuine craftsmanship, but empty claims often commingled with the pretentious luxury of snake oil products (like quantum effects, unobtanium questionable metallurgy, Illuminati stickers, etc.) must be called out regardless of which objective-functionalist/subjective-esthete end of the spectrum one aligns more with.
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| Watch on the right based on "Luxury" LED Digital Watch for Men on AliExpress (less than $10). |
V. Beauty or Truth? Both?
I think the enduring question for us consumers is not whether we should buy the Rolex or Timex wristwatch, the luxury or inexpensive Class D TI TPA3255 amplifier, but rather consider what is it we are seeking for?
If the goal is truth - accurate time, faithful reproduction to the sometimes ugly-sounding recorded music - then modest functional tools capable of good objective measurements will more than suffice in the 21st Century. When accuracy has already been commoditized, we must be cautious whenever we see manufacturers and reviewers trying to correlate higher asking price with higher fidelity.
No reasonable Rolex mechanical watch owner would claim that their expensive device with +/-2s/day "Superlative Chronometer" drift would compete with the accuracy of a quartz Timex! Likewise, Rolex would be ridiculed to dare advertise that their mechanical automatic watch tells time "better" than a Timex! So too, unless proven otherwise, never assume that an MSB Reference DAC, or Linn Klimax DSM/3, or Chord DAVE, or DCS Vivaldi Apex, or Wadax Atlantis Reference will be any more "resolving" than something much more modestly priced but otherwise well-engineered.
If the goal is beauty, exclusivity, and identity, then owning something from that luxury market fulfills a different set of human desires. Exotic, exclusive things accompanied with much higher price tags should be no surprise whether we're talking about sports cars or purses. Within that luxury market, price likely correlates with desirability, not functional accuracy.
In a lifetime, we should not be bound to extremes whether of thought or of the product classes that we buy. When we start our journey as young audiophiles, it makes sense to go for the accurate but inexpensive Topping (Timex). In time, with living expenses easily covered, privileged with a larger home, greater net worth, higher affluence, then by all means, go for that Wilson/McIntosh (Rolex) you might have been dreaming about over the years.
Having said this, personally I would always want to make sure that I'm not giving up anything of significance when it comes to fidelity, so objective measurements would still be important for me. Also, since I believe some components make more difference than others, I would prioritize a high-quality set of loudspeakers or headphones over a DAC or an already powerful-enough quality amplifier.
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| Very nice looking Omega Seamasters. Asking price for that beautiful ladies' bejewelled Omega Constellation with "small seconds" feature on the right is 526,000 Czech korunas/crowns. This is approximately US$24.9k currently. |
VI. Can "High End Audio" continue to grow to anywhere near the success of the luxury wristwatch market?
[I find it interesting that the well-known high-end company mbl has recently been sold to a primarily jewelry company. I believe that this is completely consistent with the model and consumer segment that the "ultra high-end" should be pursuing.
BTW, I loved mbl's show room in my visits to Singapore!]
* As per GQ's "Why true watch heads never set the time on their watches", I appreciate this nugget of honesty:Watches have long outlived their purpose as simply time tellers. They are keepers of stories, objects of beauty and design, great accessories, incredible feats of mechanical engineering, pickup-line delivery machines, and mega status symbols. Knowing if you’re on time to a meeting or not comes secondary to all this. As Owens put it: “If all I cared about was timekeeping, I’d get a digital watch!”
This recognition I believe is well-known among horophiles and impacts product reviews. For example, in this Worn & Wound review of the Omega Seamaster, notice the things the reviewer paid attention to. Fit and finish, personal reasons to buy it (eg. looking cool like James Bond), general reliability. Does he mention time accuracy at all? No. Elsewhere ABlogToWatch's NORQAIN Independence Skeleton Chrono 42mm Watches review ($7+k) noted this: "Finally, the movements are all COSC Chronometer-certified." That's all the reviewer needs to say about accuracy!
In the same way, how important really is the subjective impression of sound quality when reviewing the Wilson Chronosonic XVX ($329k MSRP)? Do we need to spend pages describing it? Do we honestly think Mike Fremer could ever say that it sounds poor in his small cluttered room? The form and desirability is what's most important with these kinds of products in order for the asking price to make sense. We hope that decent sound (function) is already a given. There's no mystery why magazines like Stereophile only rarely give poor subjective reviews. Maybe the High-End Industry should just form a COSC-like certification program that confirms adequate sonic fidelity within some reasonable limits and the subjective reviewer can say something useful about the usability, build quality, and industrial design based on their taste in the audio hardware gear art form.
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On a personal note, while my wife and I have complementing Longines watches we got for our wedding almost 25 years ago for fancy evenings, we make sure the time is correctly set when we do wear them. 🙂
However, as a pragmatic functionalist who eschews pretentious opulence, I've been happy with my made-in-Japan Citizen EcoDrive Skyhawk C651, slightly beaten up for the last >20 years (I guess around US$500 for new modern equivalent):
It's got mechanical hands for the classic look, digital LCD for stopwatch function when I need it like timing a steak, while doing physical exams like counting heart rate manually, or timing a cognitive test when other tools are not around. It's also got time zones for travels including that customized "VAN" for home base in Vancouver. 10bar (100m) water resistance is nice for the pool or on the beach. And best of all, solar powered so even if I don't wear it for months, no issue with losing track of time/date; the solar cells in this thing are still going strong after more than 2 decades.
Although I'm not into this, a buddy for some reason enjoys collecting luxury wristwatch "super clones", "replicas", and sent me this video recently:
Wow, clearly there's a significant market to have manufacturers go to this length! I guess audio cable clones like this and this do a pretty good job also.
If this is interesting, you should also check out this comparison, and this. Hey, some people collect labubus, others lafufus, and others hoard replica Rolexes.
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Greetings from Prague, in old Bohemia, friends. Dan Brown's recent novel The Secret of Secrets (2025) is staged in Prague and it's a quick, fun read as a travel companion.
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| Marian Column & Church of Our Lady Before Tyn. |
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| Prague Castle, . |
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| Legal graffiti - bring your own spray paint to Lennon Wall. October 2025, Prague. |
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| Vltava River by Charles Bridge on the right, Prague. |
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| Star at St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle. |
Notice in the photo above, I've opened up the lens aperture to accentuate the depth-of-field effect between the foreground jeweled star and the background stained-glass window; I also purposely made a few alterations to accentuate contrast, color, and lower noise.
Hope you're all enjoying the music and the sound system!
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