Audemars Piguet's November 2026 Releases: Chiming Supersonnerie and Stone-Dial Code 11.59

Audemars Piguet has closed the autumn season with a release programme that pulls in two deceptively opposite directions: three new Minute Repeater Supersonnerie references, and two natural-stone-dial Code 11.59 Selfwinding models. One group is about sound; the other about a slice of the earth. The releases were covered in detail by Haute Time, with further reference detail reported by Fratello and Man of Many.

Haute horlogerie is usually described as a single discipline. In practice it is at least two. The first is engineering — making metal behave in ways it was never asked to behave, then measuring the result. The second is material connoisseurship: choosing a stone and a surface so that a watch carries a quality no drawing could specify. The Supersonnerie belongs to the first; the stone-dial Code 11.59 belongs to the second, where the dial is not printed or lacquered but simply cut from a mineral and finished.

Eight years of acoustics

The Supersonnerie is not a conventional repeater made louder. According to Haute Time, it emerged from eight years of interdisciplinary development involving watchmakers, musicians and researchers from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, producing patented gongs mounted on a soundboard, a new construction and a new regulator — the component that governs how quickly the chime train runs.

The logic is closer to instrument building than to watchmaking. In a standard repeater, gongs are anchored to the case band, so much of the vibration is lost into the surrounding metal. Mounting them on a soundboard lets the case itself project the sound — which is why the Supersonnerie was conceived as a construction rather than a decoration.

Calibre 2953: one movement, three voices

All three chiming references share manual-winding Calibre 2953. As reported by Haute Time, it measures 30mm across and 6mm thick, comprises 362 parts and 32 jewels, runs at 3 Hz, and delivers a minimum 72-hour power reserve. A repeater must carry an additional train, a governor and hammers without destroying the proportions of the watch, while leaving enough reserve that the chime is not voiced by a nearly drained mainspring — so a 6mm-thick movement with a minimum 72-hour reserve, in a case that stays wearable, is the practical expression of that eight-year effort.

The three chiming references

The first is the Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie, reference 26591TI.OO.1252TI.08: a 42mm case executed entirely in titanium, including the screw-down caseback, crown and integrated bracelet with an Audemars Piguet folding clasp. The dial is satin-brushed smoked green sunburst that darkens toward the edge, with green small seconds, 18k white gold Royal Oak hands and silver-toned 18k pink gold luminescent hour markers, rated to 20m water resistance.

A second 42mm Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie follows in 18k pink gold, reference 26591OR.OO.1252OR.01, with a brown Grande Tapisserie dial, as noted by Man of Many.

The third is the Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Minute Repeater Supersonnerie, reference 26395BC.OO.D009CR.01: 41mm and 13.6mm thick in 18k white gold, with a fully polished case middle. Here the construction is most explicit — the caseback doubles as the Supersonnerie soundboard, with fine openings forming a resonance chamber. A smoked sapphire dial reveals Calibre 2953, while the minute track and small seconds rim are formed in galvanic growth. A grey alligator strap and an 18k white gold folding clasp complete it, at 20m water resistance. As Haute Time notes, the Code 11.59 Supersonnerie was first presented in 2023.

Stone dials: mineralogy as dial-making

The release's second half is two new 38mm Code 11.59 Selfwinding models, each in a 9.6mm case with a double-curved glareproofed sapphire crystal, a sapphire caseback and 30m water resistance, driven by selfwinding Calibre 5909 — 3.9mm thin, running at 4 Hz with a 60-hour power reserve.

One wears a gold obsidian dial with a sunburst motif in an 18k yellow gold case, reference 77410BA.OO.A604CR.01, with a brown inner bezel and black alligator strap. The other wears a black onyx dial in 18k pink gold, reference 77410OR.OO.A001CR.01.

Stone dials are a small, old and quietly difficult category. Obsidian and onyx are not uniform: each dial is cut from a different part of a larger block, so banding and pattern vary from piece to piece. The work lies in cutting a thin section from a brittle mineral and mounting it so that it survives daily wear. The reward is a surface lacquer cannot reproduce — gold obsidian carries a shimmer that shifts as the wrist moves. Those weighing wrist size will find our wrist size guide useful, and buyers choosing between a selfwinding movement and a manual-winding chimer may find the quartz versus automatic watch guide a helpful primer.

How a repeater tells the time

A minute repeater sounds the time on demand rather than displaying it: pull the slide in the case band and the watch chimes the current time acoustically, in three registers. Lower-pitched tones indicate the hours. A two-tone cadence — a low note followed by a high note — indicates the completed quarters since the last hour. Higher-pitched tones then sound the remaining minutes.

So a watch chiming at ten minutes past eight strikes eight low notes, one quarter cadence, then ten high notes. At half past eight it sounds eight low notes and two quarter cadences, with no minutes at all, because the half hour is already accounted for. Reading a chime is listening to structure, not counting noise.

Three rules of care

Never operate the repeater slide while setting the time. The chime train and the setting works are both driven through the going train, and engaging one while manipulating the other puts the mechanism into a state it was not designed to occupy. Set the time, let the hands settle, then sound the chime.

Have it serviced by an authorised specialist. Hammers must be timed to the gongs and the governor must regulate at the correct rate. The acoustic performance is part of the specification, and only a specialist familiar with the construction can restore it.

Keep it away from magnets and shocks. Magnetic fields can leave a steel spring magnetised, altering rate and disturbing the timing of the governor and hammers. Shock is the quieter hazard: a struck hammer, a gong out of true, or a displaced regulator is a repair, not a cleaning.

What collectors should take from it

Guidance for the secondary market follows the mechanism rather than the reference list. A chiming watch should be heard before it is bought — the chime is its most personal characteristic. Ask who last serviced it, and whether that was a specialist familiar with the construction. On a stone-dial piece, examine the dial in raking light: mineral dials vary individually, so small differences in banding are properties of the material rather than faults to argue over. In both cases, provenance and documentation carry more weight than cosmetics.

Every piece we list is inspected and certified and described in our Pre-Loved (Certified) condition wording — you can see what is available from the house on our Audemars Piguet page and across our watches collection. Some of the finest engineering in watchmaking is audible rather than visible, and these releases make that a matter of choice.