Best sounding switches and Keycap profile
Hi Everyone, I just bought my first mechanical keyboard (Wooting 80HE) and ordered the Geon Raws HE after watching a few YouTube videos—they sounded great. However, on my keyboard, they sound clacky as hell, and I actually prefer the Lekker 60 V2! They’re much quieter and sound better (in my opinion). Right now, I’m using the PCR case because my Zinc case won’t arrive for another month (mid-March). Do you think that’s why the Geon Raws HE sound so off? I’m considering getting the Jades Pro, but I don’t want to waste more money on switches if it’s not necessary. Should I wait for the Zinc case and then decide? What would you do or recommend for someone who prefers thocky or silent keyboards? I also have a question about keycaps. I’m struggling with typing—I’m used to working all day on an MX Keys S, but with the Wooting keyboard, I keep pressing multiple keys at once. Adjusting has been tough. Can you recommend a keycap profile that might help? Would DSA work, or do you have other...
Feb 6, 2025
But, to answer your question, here is why the choices they have made result in an inferior switch and why Massdrop's framing of the product is naive at best and dishonest at worst:
Contacts are gold plated because it increases their lifespan and prevents or reduces mechanical wear, corrosion, and oxidation of the contacts. These are all things that would cause a switch to fail. A switch without gold plated contacts will fail when a switch *with* gold plated contacts would not. The softer plastic is less of an issue, but the keys held by the plunger would be more likely to twist and the plastic itself might be marred by harder keycaps. Soft plastic is what leads to things feeling "cheap."
Do these things matter to the average keyboard user? In the short term, no, but they definitely reduce the life of the product you are being sold. If you would expect your keyboard to last to the end of the switch's mechanical rating, you would want them to be gold plated. Massdrop (at the behest of Gateron, probably) claims Gateron switches are equals to Cherry. This is not true.
The switches themselves are probably fine. I would just expect them to be cheaper. They're not cheaper. So, they're a bad buy. Personally I might be interested in them if they were cheaper. I'm not trying to argue Cherry switches are inherently better or anything, or that it's not a real keyboard if you don't have Cherry switches, I'm just pointing out that Massdrop is "lying."
I hate liars.
Random NonClicky MX Blues/MX Greens: Check. Wildly inconsistant MX Whites: Check. Scratchy MX Red/MX Blacks: Check.
Just because a product is made in China doesn't mean it's by default inferior nor does it mean its workers should automatically be expected to accept a unfair wage so you can pay less.