Blind test: keyboard sound comparison challenge

hansichen

15 Dec 2018, 20:49

Hello fellows,
recently we've seen some controvery about the sound of keyboards and different switches and manufacturers. Talking about switches is of course always a very emotional thing cause everybody has its own preference and where nobody is objective. So I thought it would be a fun thing to have a random selection of keyboard recordings where people rate them without knowing what it is :D

Yesterday I took 11 board of my collection with linear or tactile switches (no ibm stuff included cause there is no real point to have two clicky switches included where everybody knows how they sound :lol: ). Also the sound of the way a board is built and the switch sound itself is way more noticeable with "silent" switches. To have a somehow decent comparison I put my microphone at one point on the desk and then record one board after another.

The selection of boards include MX boards, self build boards, alps boards and topre. To make this a fun comparison I'd suggest that people rate all 11 boards on a scale from 0-10. 0 is a horrible sound, 0-4 is a negative rating for a board, 5 is a neutral rating and 6-10 is a positive pleasent sound (while 10 is obviously the best). Of course you can also write more about specific boards, speculate about which switch or board it is. The list of recorded keyboards will be posted next weekend.

Please be civil this time, I tried my best with the recording quality and please excuse if some custom boards are not perfectly modded, I'm not the best keyboard builder and I'm not so sensitive to keyboard sounds. Here we go:

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Myoth

15 Dec 2018, 21:12

Let's see how I did :D

Keyboard 1 : QXP

Keyboard 2 : 1000 ?

Keyboard 3 : Wang

Keyboard 4 : 3000 ?

Keyboard 5 : Mech27

Keyboard 6 : 2100

Keyboard 7 : AEK

Keyboard 8 : no idea :?

Keyboard 9 : HHKB

Keyboard 10 : CLSs

Keyboard 11 : A zenith board I'd guess, not sure with one though

__red__

15 Dec 2018, 21:36

Oh, this is a glorious idea. I bet few are willing to actually put numbers next to the sounds in case they slander their favorite switch ;-)

Myoth - you forgot to include the serial-numbers of the keyboards. Go big or go home <3

User avatar
Myoth

15 Dec 2018, 21:42

K1 : 7
K2 : 4
K3 : 5
K4 : 6
K5 : 8
K6 : 9
K7 : 5
K8 : 5
K9 : 8
K10 : 6
K11 : 6

and the Keyboard 11 : ZKB-2, I remember now :lol:
__red__ wrote: Myoth - you forgot to include the serial-numbers of the keyboards. Go big or go home <3
but how will I know about the localisation !?

"hmmm this sounds like a swedish layout" ?!

orihalcon

15 Dec 2018, 21:50

I like the idea, but I think the sound will vary a lot based on typing style and mic placement. Seems like there's a lot of bottoming out going on which I personally don't mind, but kind of masks sound of the actual switch and makes linears even sound clicky in some cases. Not sure how Chyros puts his mics, but his typing demos sound pretty different from each other from what I remember, though have never listened to them blind, so that also could be a figment of my imagination ;)

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