The left dial on this one does not have hands. Reference RT replaced the second twelve hour register with a digital twenty-four hour display, so the home time appears as a number in an aperture rather than as a pair of hands, and the ambiguity that comes with reading a second time zone on a twelve hour scale disappears with it. The case is 18K 6N gold at 40 mm on a gold bracelet, the dial plate is 6N gold, and the right hand register stays analog. It is no longer made. The reference ran alongside the analog versions rather than replacing them, so both layouts were available at the same time. Gold cases were offered throughout the run, with platinum alongside them.
Two different kinds of display on one dial is a harder thing to balance than two matching ones. On the left a jumping numeral shows through a window, on the right a conventional register carries hours, minutes and small seconds, and the two have to read as parts of the same watch rather than as a compromise. Journe held it together by keeping both inside whitened guilloche silver surrounds set into the gold plate, so the material and the framing stay constant even though the contents do not. Gold on gold makes the registers the only cool elements on the face. The bracelet is cut from the same 6N gold as the case. Bracelets on the Souveraine models are a late addition and this is one of the few Resonances to carry one. Links are articulated at the case so a heavy watch tracks the wrist, and the clasp is gold as well, which adds to a total that was already substantial for a 40 mm watch. The effect is to move the model out of the dress category it occupied for twenty years and into something that can be worn with anything. Whether that suits a watch with two movements and a digital aperture is a matter of taste. Nothing else about the case changed for the bracelet, and the lugs will still take a strap if an owner prefers one.
A digital hour display means a disc rather than a hand, and a disc that jumps rather than creeps. The numeral changes on the hour instead of drifting through it, which is what makes the display readable at a glance, and a twenty-four hour scale means there is never a question of whether the other place is at breakfast or dinner. That is the practical argument for the layout and it is a good one. What it costs is the symmetry of the original arrangement, which is the reason some collectors prefer the older references, and it is the single clearest dividing line between generations of this model. Setting it works the way every Resonance does. The crown winds both barrels, pulls to a single position, and turns in one direction for the left display and the other for the right, so the digital hours advance from the same control that moves the analog hands. A button returns both seconds hands to zero together, which starts the two movements in step. Nothing about the resonance itself changed with the display: two complete movements sit on one plate, each with its own barrel and train, exchanging vibration through the plate until they settle into a fixed relationship. Only the way the second time is shown was altered.
The Resonance has been revised more often than anything else in the catalogue and each revision addressed a specific complaint. Two twelve hour dials were ambiguous, so RT made one of them digital and twenty-four hour. The coupling weakened as the barrels ran down, so the current generation added a constant force device. Brass movements gave way to rose gold along the way. What has never changed is the principle: two complete movements on one plate, exchanging vibration until they fall into step. A buyer choosing between references is choosing which set of compromises to live with rather than which watch is better. That is an unusual position for a catalogue to be in and it is specific to this model. Elsewhere in the collection a later reference supersedes an earlier one and the older watches become historical objects; here the older layouts remain preferable to some buyers, because symmetry is a real quality and the digital display trades it for legibility. Journe has never argued otherwise. The result is that all three generations have followings, that the differences between them are discussed more than almost anything else the house makes, and that a buyer has to decide what the watch is for before deciding which one to look at. Very little else in watchmaking works that way.
Gold on a gold bracelet makes this the most substantial of the RT executions and the least formal. The digital display is the reason to choose the reference and the reason to avoid it, depending on whether a second time zone gets used. On the wrist the watch is heavy and the bracelet manages that well. As a discontinued reference the questions are condition, bracelet completeness and service history, and the aperture should be checked at an hour change, since a jumping display that hesitates is a service matter rather than a characteristic. The bracelet is the other thing to check, since gold links removed at sizing are frequently lost and a discontinued bracelet cannot be completed afterwards. Servicing takes twice as long as a single movement watch would, and the manufacture is realistically the only place equipped for it. Beyond that the watch is undemanding, and the digital display needs no attention beyond setting. Both times are set from the same crown, and the reset button is the only other control on the watch.
