Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
Dang, that sure feels like a lot to go through. For marketing of switches which may only be a few sentences on a screen next to the big, glowing ‘Add to Cart’ button, who could have thought there were so many useful and useless details in those sentences? While finding the right switch from a sales listing, alone, is more of an art than a science, know that it will come with practice and with the more experience you pick up with switches. I’d be lying if I said it was an art that I, myself, have mastered even. Whenever you are in doubt about any marketing phrase when it comes to switches, the first thing to do is to always reach out to people in the community to ask or to look up some more information on your own. Chances are that if you have a question about it, some of the other hundreds of thousands of people with mechanical keyboards will also have had them as well!