I think it's good of them to be open about the fact that they need to switch between manufacturers depending on availability, especially with Swatch having played games with ETA distribution.
I have to admit that I'm personally happier with a Valjoux 7750 than I would be with a Sellita SW500, but that really has more to do with the history of the Valjoux movement and its label than with any concerns I have about the construction. As far as brands in this price range go, Sinn is pretty darn committed to their movements functioning reliably and accurately. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.
Good discussion though. Always interesting and worthwhile to think about these topics with manufacturers that aren't producing stuff in-house.

 

The situation with the availability of ETA is very unfortunate indeed. But I think that buyers have the right to know what movement is inside a >$1000 watch, not to mention in some of their >$3000 pieces. Of the top of my head, the only other brand that I can think of that ships you either an ETA or a Sellita without letting you know is Christopher Ward...

 

Yeah, definitely agree that it would be better to know than not know before buying. But I can also imagine a problematic situation in which distributors have lots of pieces in stock with one movement, and Sinn make the switch and have a different movement advertised on their website. What's worse than not knowing is thinking you know, buying the watch, and having it arrive with a different movement!

Clearly, the solution is for someone to give Nick Hayek Jr. a stern talk. Giant conglomerates always manage to find a way to screw up good products.

 

Doing this gives watch manufacturers a bit more wriggle room if any particular movement becomes difficult to source.

 

From a manufacturer's or assembler's point of view, the sourcing freedom appears to be advantageous.
However, obfuscating this piece of information may be detrimental to sales in the long run -- it will depend on how many Sinn buyers actually care about knowing about the movement.
If Sinn is business smart, then they did some consumer habit research before implementing this change.

 

I'm glad they are being straight forward about it and with Swatch Group "doing what they do" I can't blame them. That being said I do hope in the future they list the specific model of movement they go with for each watch. Anytime your spending more than 1,000 on a watch I think the consumer has a right to know.

Luckily I picked up my 1736 a month ago. And while I got it for the clean looks what made me pull the trigger was the Top Grade ETA 2892 that was in it. While I do own various in house watches such as Jaeger LeCoultre, Omega, etc I wanted a watch that could reliably take a beating on a daily basis. Sinn overbuilds their watches and despite what some watch snobs will tell you ETA makes some great movements. Top grade is very accurate and the things are tanks. Meanwhile my Jaegers while beautiful have been to the shop within one year of owning them for warranty work.

So yeah, again I get it. But still there are people like myself who will choose a watch based on the movement among other things. If Sinn wants to keep charging what they charge for watches with the new movements that's fine too. But at their prices I expect to know what I am paying for.

 

I understand Sinn's need for flexibility in their manufacture, but I agree with other folks that if I'm paying substantial dollars (some Sinn watches are $3500 or more) I want to know what is inside.

 

Agree 100 perc. I wanna know what I`m paying for.

 

i agree, however I think we need to wait to see if they release the information during a sale ... it would make sense to pull it off the website if they can't reliably source movements.

In short, pulling the info off the website is totally fine, but not telling you what your specific watch has when you go to buy it would not be ideal.

 

I think this might be the start of a shift in the watch world for the smaller manufacturers. As time goes on, we might just have to learn to be satisfied that there is a “top grade movement” running the watch regardless of origins/make. As long as there is a solid warranty in place, not really sure it actually matters, other than personal preference. Tough one...

 

There might be more impetus now for to push for in-house. I personally don't think it's necessary, and would be happy to keep buying Sinn as long as they're rigorously qc-ing and regulating the movements that come through their doors. But I have to admit that I'd jump in that purchase line pretty quick if it ever happened.

"Under your leadership, Sinn has launched a series of technologies that seem to focus primarily on the outside of a watch. Will we ever see a Sinn in-house movement?

We have already developed several movement modifications. We are fitting some of our series models with our SZ movement modifications - which are developed, built, and assembled in-house. I am toying with the idea of an in-house movement. The questions of when this will actually be feasible is another matter."

https://www.watchtime.com/featured/lothar-schmidt-sinn-watches-interview/

 

The thing with in-house is, then the brand has to expend the money on new hires, tooling, training, floor space, materials, etc and all of those costs get baked back into a watch PLUS servicing costs balloon! It just doesn't make any sense for the consumer or the industry to have a zillion brands all with a duplicative capability for no real benefit to anyone.

Sure, with something like the Zenith Freak or the new Defy stuff, yeah you need in-house people to build that, but this is Sinn we're talking about: tool watches!

A killer tool watch should be tough as nails with an industry standard easily serviceable movement.

I'd much rather see Sinn continue to push innovation on materials versus duplicating a mostly commodity capability with no tool watch benefit.

EDIT
Maybe Sinn, Oris, and a few others should team up and buy Sellita to create an industry asset with the capacity to supply them all, while all staying independent.

 

Seeing as how Sinn had to change movements in the T1 and T2 due to problems with performance (actually keeping time and not being a piece of jewelry). Yeah I wanna know what's in the case.

 

Are you saying that the Soprod A-10* has performance problems? Apparently you can get a little blue pill for that. Ha Ha Ha.

Seriously, I think soprod will be interested to know this. That the movements they are selling don't keep time. This is a serious business problem for them. Who is going to buy their movements if they don't keep time?

 

delete this.

 

Actually Sinn have already developed an in-house movement under their Uhren Werke Dresden (UWD) label.

They have been making in-house parts for years including their cases under the SUG label. Which also supplies cases to other high end watch manufacturers like A.Lange and Sohne.

*I guess like any intelligent person who is going to spend a bit of money on a watch you would want to do some research and make sure that you get what you are paying for. Just avoid the pathetic troll minefield and you will be fine.

 

Actually Sinn have already developed an in-house movement under their Uhren Werke Dresden (UWD) label.

Uhren-Werke Dresden are a movement manufacturer that is owned by Tempus Arte GmbH & Co.KG which also owns Lang & Heyne and Leinfelder Uhren.

 

I am really impressed with Sinn's business ethics. How many other watch companies are using the Soprod A-10? Only Sinn had the integrity to drop what is clearly a defective movement (according to gotsrpings). For a different one. Wow. I am impressed. It's good to see Sinn looking out for their buyers.

 

The thing I would be really worried about...

By not telling us what movement is in it... would that allow them to "smug" the "WELL THAT AMOUNT OF DEVIATION IS WITH IN SPEC."

ITS A G-D D---ED WATCH... I want it to keep time!

 

As long as Sinn or any other manufacturer stands by performance claims and warranty coverage, I'm actually not so concerned about knowing what movement goes into a watch. If it concerned me, I'd contact the retailer and ask at that level, then confirm by observation or have a watchmaker take a look.

 

Nobody does that. And for someone with a great reputation like Sinn to do it is insane. When IWC went from ETA 2892 to SW300-1 they changed the name of "their" movements from 30110 to 35111. A high-quality mechanical movement that could be ETA, Sellita, Soprod, LJP...it will backfire on them. It's much better for them to just list the exact movement and change the specs if they can't source it anymore and have to change to another movement.

 

This is my experience only and from a sample size of three watches with Sellita movements.

Sellita movement #1 - After two days the winding/setting mechanism failed such that any rotation of the crown caused the hands to move.

Sellita movement #2 - As received, the watch randomly stopped within a few hours of a full wind.

Sellita movement #3 - Rate was -20 seconds per day when received.

Based on this, I will not purchase a Sinn or any other brand unless it can be confirmed that the watch I am purchasing does not contain a Sellita movement. I'm sure there are owners out there that the have received excellent service from their watches containing Sellita movements but it hasn't been my experience.

There have been some posts on other watchuseek forums regarding the quality of Sellita movements. The comment from a very well respected watchmaker is that the cost of many Sellita parts are higher than the cost of the equivalent part for an ETA movement.

 

I won't buy a watch if I can't learn the movement beforehand via their website.
Considering there were problems with each of my 4 new Sinn watches I bought in 2018 and 2019, not sharing the movement on their website is yet another strike against them for me.

 

Yes, this is all very unfortunate. And if you ask me, very unexpected from a brand with a reputation (and a price point) like Sinn. For example, SW200-1 has an advertised power reserve of 38h, ETA 2824 has 42h (they use different hair-springs, not sure about the mainspring). That is a power reserve difference of ~ 10%. Can you imagine buying a car in which the manufacturer uses different engines whose fuel consumption varies by 10%, and what's worse, does not tell you which one you are getting?
No, it's just not right.
This was the last reason that I needed to steer towards my second Damasko instead of a Sinn.

 

Yes, this is all very unfortunate. And if you ask me, very unexpected from a brand with a reputation (and a price point) like Sinn. For example, SW200-1 has an advertised power reserve of 38h, ETA 2824 has 42h (they use different hair-springs, not sure about the mainspring). That is a power reserve difference of ~ 10%. Can you imagine buying a car in which the manufacturer uses different engines whose fuel consumption varies by 10%, and what's worse, does not tell you which one you are getting?
No, it's just not right.
This was the last reason that I needed to steer towards my second Damasko instead of a Sinn.

No it doesn't. Are you making crap up? Also I am sure no one gives a crap what watch you buy. Why did you create a thread about it.....oh wait.

 

Deleted (duplicate of previous post).

 

Yeah, a Sinn "mystery movement" isn't cool at any of their price points IMO.

One person's entry level watch is another person's grail timepiece, and I wanna know what's under the hood.

 

Dupe

 

I don’t find it an issue. Sinn is a solid company and wouldn’t risk their reputation using sub par movements especially in their higher end watches. I’m pretty sure also that if you contacted them before buying a watch they could tell you what movements they are using or have used in a watch by serial number etc


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

SUG/Sinn manufacture cases in SS, Grade 5 titanium and of course precious metals.

 

In addition to technology, the heart of any SINN watch is the fascinating mechanical movement. We use exclusively the very best quality of movements provided by renowned manufacturers with proven experience with whom we've been working for many years:

ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse, Grenchen, Switzerland
Manufacture La Joux-Perret SA, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
SELLITA WATCH CO, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Soprod SA, Les Reussilles, Switzerland
Uhren-Werke-Dresden, Germany

The movements are also manufactured in parts in accordance with our technical specifications.

As required by capacities, we reserve the right to switch between the manufacturers mentioned above when it comes to sourcing the movement for a single model. In other words, the movement actually used may differ from that listed in the technical specifications. However, we always use a movement of highest quality from one of the manufacturers mentioned above.

https://www.sinn.de/en/HIGH-QUALITY_MECHANICAL_MOVEMENTS.htm

How is that difficult to understand? You would have to be defective in some way not to get that/it.

 

If Sinn can't guarantee a specific movement, should they just stop production of certain models for a length of time, until they can figure out the movement market?

What would be better, Sinn not producing watches until the movement market settles out, possibly putting them on shaky financial footing, or doing the best they can during a time of industry transition?

It's interesting what modern times hath wrought--an expectation of immediate resolution to situations which may evolve over the course of months or years.

Again, if it's important to you, and obviously to some it is not, inquire about the movement at time of purchase. Such a drag that you have to engage in one whole extra step of communication, such an effort, but something you'll have to do if it matters to you.

This is less a Sinn and more an ETA issue, so if you're going to get all poutraged about the situation, save it for Swatch Group, not Sinn...

 

Although I don't mean defective in a mentally handicapped way. Although I am sure that is playing a hand. I mean in a social skills kind of way. That causes someone who cannot form meaningful relationships in reality. To try and show everyone how smart they are by "trolling". You realize this is a nothing argument right?

That no one gives a rats arse about. Why aren't Sinn using a Seiko or seagull movement? That's the BIG question. Also why do they make their watch parts in-house. When they could have a Chinese mega factory do it for them? While having zero watch making skills.

How do you even know what movement is in a watch? Are you seriously going to trust some fly by night brand that is manufactured in a Chinese mega factory? I trust Sinn because they are a serious watch making company.