Cherry MX White Sound Differences

[Madhias]

Some months ago i tuned my Filco keyboard from MX Blues to MX Whites on the alphas, and MX Greens on everything else. I noticed that the Whites sound a little bit different to the Greens, but in general not that much. I used a batch of about 100 switches, and listened to all of the switches before the soldering started to have similar Whites for the keyboard. Of course i did that very fast and wanted to start instantly. Afterwards i didn't thought anything about it because i did not used the keyboard for a long time anymore because of Model Ms and a Realforce keyboard.

Last week i used the Filco with Whites and Greens again, on a daily basis at work. As working with graphic applications and typing some mails i noticed that the Whites sound different to each other. Some of them click, some not - i already read that before i bought the switches, but wanted to use them anyway. I also noticed shortly after the soldering job that not all switches clicked or not clicked perfect, but as said before i didn't really care.

That's how they sound, the difference of the sound is also the distance of the microphone, but you should easily hear the huge difference of the sound of some switches. Sorry for the bad video quality, but normally i shoot pictures and do not make videos.

[Stabilized]

There is a big difference, this is what put me off the white switch as I was thinking about putting them in my new build.

I read somewhere that it is lube on the slider, and this creates inconsistencies.
Do they all sound the same despite the sound difference?

[HzFaq]

I've had 2 batches of whites, the first one was from keyboardco and the second from 7bit about a year later; both sounded totally different. The switches from the keyboard co sound like muted blues but felt heavier whereas the ones from 7bit in a blind test I couldn't tell the difference between them and greens in both feel and sound.

I think someone, might even have been 7bit, said that where blues feel like egg shells cracking, whites felt like mushrooms cracking which pretty accurately describes the first and second batches that I got - the first were mushrooms, the second were eggs for sure.

Oddly, the switches across both batches had the same characteristics; all the first batch switches felt mushroomy and all the second batch felt eggy...

[Stabilized]

Hang on, let me go and grab some eggs and mushrooms....

[HzFaq]

Omelette time .

[webwit]

This one with eggs and mushrooms is delicious.

[002]

Good to see that even a world famous chef burns his toast

[webwit]

I bet that was scripted!

[andrewjoy]

i have the same toaster and i find it hard to burn the toast in it there is a little dot after the number 2 and if you put it there it is always just right

[Muirium]

Life is like a bag of MX whites.

They're playful and inconsistent, more like buckling springs and Topre than their boring fellow MX brothers. It's all down to the analogue goodness of that lube on the stems.

For what it's worth, my batch of MX whites from 7bit (arrived recently, with my HyperMicro PCB) are pretty consistent for a change and muted clicky, just like they're meant to be. Easy to tell apart from blues and greens. I put a couple of clears and a tactile grey on the board with them, not so bad a match actually.

[dzhoou]

The inconsistency of MX Whites were spotted by various other people too.

http://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeybo ... omparison/

[HzFaq]

Just to prove I'm not nuts...

So they sound like cracking mushrooms instead of egg-shells, right?

[Eszett]

Interesting. Does the same inconsistency apply to MX clears?

[Nuum]

Nope, they are neither lubed nor do they click, so there's not that much variance possible. At least mine are all consistent to each other, apart from minor differences in spring weight, etc., which you can't really feel.

[Eszett]

Good answer, Nuum!