Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Grand Reveil: The Perfect Complicated Watch?

• • Complicated luxury watches embody the ultimate in prestige and refinement.

• • The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grand Reveil offers a complete perpetual calendar and alarm.

• • Calendar offers day/date/month/year/decade/century & north/south hemisphere moonphases.

• • The alarm employs a potent bronze gong and dual-mode vibrate/ring selector.

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Grand Reveil may be the perfect complicated luxury watch.

Simply put, no rival can touch JLC‘s combination of in-house watchmaking capability and knack for delivering it at a price that keeps mortal hearts hopeful.

When the collector’s budget doesn’t support Patek Philippe grand complications, Jaeger-LeCoultre delivers the same degree of engineering excellence at a price point that puts the “Calatrava Cross” to shame.

Consider what Jaeger packs into the Master Grand Reveil. First of all, it’s a perpetual calendar…

…with a moon phase display for northern and southern hemispheres…with a year, decade, and century display. And there’s a 24-hour dial to clarify AM/PM plus the calendar’s no-set danger zone.

And JLC includes a programmable alarm. It has a bronze gone for optimal volume and tone. It can be set to ring or vibrate discreetly; the choice is yours.

And unlike Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre delivers this tidal wave of watch tech in a versatile stainless steel case that’s suited to any occasion and any attire.  And that’s only the beginning.

Released in 2005, the Master Grand Reveil is the latest and most sophisticated manifestation of a company tradition that traces its origins to 1989.

At the time, Jaeger-LeCoultre was in the earliest stage of its recovery from near-oblivion during the 1970’s-80’s “Quartz Crisis” that beset the Swiss watch industry. Seeking to declare its intent to return to a station atop the luxury watch hierarchy, JLC needed to make a serious statement. By combining its longtime signature – the “memovox” alarm watch – with a comprehensive perpetual calendar, JLC came off the mat and landed a hay-maker.

In the perpetual calendar alarm, JLC found a halo watch that literally “spoke” for itself.

That original reference, the 180.1/2/6.99 Grand Reveil, was the first to combine this tandem of sophisticated complications, and its successor, the Master Grande Memovox 146.2/3/6.95 maintained the tradition into the 21st century. But those watches were available exclusively in precious metal, and JLC kept its flagship beyond the reach of most collectors.

The 2005 Master Grand Reveil Ref. 149.8.95 was a game changer.

For the first time, JLC’s grandest memovox was available with a blue-collar case metal. Handsome, rugged, and easily refinished when necessary, the steel case of the MGR spawned one of the most successful and longest-running complicated models in company history. But this Grand Reveil is so much more than a versatile companion.

There’s enough haut-de-gamme watchmaking refinement in this watch to make a comparably priced steel Rolex look like a sundial. Like a triple-scoop waffle cone full of cookie-dough confection, it’s best to attack this one in small bites.

Start with the headliner: Jaeger-LeCoultre’s comprehensive perpetual calendar.

Actually, this one is the result of a longstanding relationship with corporate cousin IWC of Schaffhausen, Switzerland. During the 1980s, JLC provided its counterpart with refined base movements, and IWC reciprocated by permitting access to the legendary Kurt Klaus perpetual calendar module.

Since that first exchange, JLC has been granted access to each successive refinement of that storied device, and the Jaeger perpetual-alarm watches have taken a monumental stride with the Master Grand Reveil’s iteration of the combined JLC/IWC movement.

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Cal. 909 is the first of these devices to feature a four-digit date and simultaneous north/south hemisphere moonphase display.

Never mind Rolex and Patek; with three window displays and nine hands, this complication has enough tech and appendages to put Dr. Octopus to shame. Like all IWC-based perpetuals, each indicator moves in coordination with the others, so there is no danger of one becoming out-of-sync with the others, and as long as you toggle to the current day’s date, you’ll never have to research esoterica like the present moon phase.

The perpetual calendar is the ultimate everyday feature on a high-end watch. There isn’t a single day of the year when ready reference to a complete date isn’t a pleasure to have on hand. When filling forms at the DMV, while writing letters, or in the course of dating official documents, the Grand Reveil makes its owner wonder what rattrapante owners do the 99% of the time they can’t run their watch.

Naturally, the Master Grand Reveil’s awesome dial display packs the same crowd-pleasing visual impact as a split-second chrono, but the JLC simply finds more real-world use.

Jaeger-LeCoultre has been manufacturing the industry’s finest alarm watches since its seminal 1951 “Wrist Alarm.”

Known to watch aficionados as the “memovox,” JLC’s alarm packs a punch unrivaled in the industry. For volume and pure tone, this monster has no equal; it boasts enough aural firepower to wake its owner at the tail end of a red-eye flight to Singapore while wearing ear plugs.

The bronze gong in the Master Grand Reveil was inspired by the robust resonance of bronze gongs in Chinese temples and pioneered in the flagship line of JLC alarm/calendars. More than a loud bell, there’s a lyrical quality to the Grand Reveil’s song that never fails to elicit grins from those within an earshot.

But for those times when subtle reminders are in order, the JLC Master Grand Reveil deploys its final party favor: a dual-mode alarm.

The ringing mode is a given, but the user-enabled vibration alert is unique to this model. In yet another advance over the previous JLC flagship alarms, the MGR was the debut platform for this technology. Not only is the MGR the only memovox to feature this refinement, it’s the only alarm watch in the industry to include such an innovation. A simple rocker switch at ten o’clock toggles between alarm modes.

Aesthetically, the Master Grand Reveil embodies the classical symmetry and elegance favored by Jaeger-LeCoultre’s veteran design chief Janek Deleskiewicz. In the MGR, the architect of JLC’s Master series has created a masterpiece.

A silvered dial with dauphine hands and four subdials exhibits a judicious mix of strength and balance.

It’s masculine without appearing to try too hard, and this is no mean feat for a timepiece with so much information to convey. While rival watchmakers clutter their dials with an excess of graphics and failed efforts at calculated asymmetry, Deleskeiwicz keeps his Master Grand Reveil clean and evenly weighted.

Even the alarm’s small “AL/VIB” indicator at 11:30 finds a counterweight in JLC’s subtle imprimatur at 1:30.

Jaeger houses this formidable package in a handsome 43mm stainless case that hasn’t aged a day since its 2005 debut; a rose gold “Master Control 1000 Hours” medallion is embedded in the caseback as a mute testament to the watch’s success against JLC’s proprietary 42-day battery of accuracy trials.

This Rose Gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grand Reveil is a stunning example of Swiss luxury watchmaking at the apex of its art.

Available from The 1916 Company with factory boxes, hang tag, and instruction manual, this high complication presents in like-new condition with stunning wrist presence.

Without reservation, The 1916 Company can assert that few watches at any price embody more tradition, feature content, and in-house savoir faire than the Master Grand Reveil.