Best Stabilizers

I recently bought and assembled a DIY keyboard KIT and i just used the stabs that came with the kit because i didnt wanna wait even longer for some other stabs to arrive, and honestly i regret it.
Anyway now i wanna know what Stabs other people recommend, so what stabs are the best?

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Well, based on my limited knowledge, I would say:

  1. Zeal’s Zeal® Transparent Gold Plated Screw-in Stabilizers V2 - Zeal Generation Inc.
  2. Durock - https://keygem.store/collections/stabilizer/products/durock-stabilizer
  3. Cherry - Official Cherry MX Stabiliser Pack (4x2u x 6.25u) | Candykeys
  4. C3

But, I would also love to know the opinions of more knowledgable people! :slight_smile:

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Yeah @dom ratings ain’t to far off my experiences. Although it really depends on if you’re using plate or PCB mount stabs. If you’re using plate mount there isn’t much choice, pretty much just genuine Cherry & cheap knock offs. PCB mount (screw in style) on the other hand has a ton of choice. I would personally rate Zeal & Ducrock/Everglide are on par IMO, then you have the new c3 stabs which would probably rate 2nd to me (have v1s & like them, v1s do bind with PBT caps though), then Cherry (thanks to the recent retooling, I used to swear by these), the knock offs IMO.

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Also worth noting that if you don’t plan on modding your stabs, C3 are likely your best bet as you don’t have to go through the whole process of clipping them (even though that’s probably the quickest part of stab modding).

Other stabs really need to take that design change imo

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Gateron recently released their own plate-mount stabs, though I don’t know if they’re any good (and IDK where to find them in stock at the moment) Gateron Plate Mounted Stabilizers – Divinikey

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Whoa, weird. Would love to get my hands on these and see if they’re any better than the Cherry ones.

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My Durocks don’t have legs to clip of.

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Whoa, when did they make that change? (another notch in the “Durock is really differentiating its stabs from their initial offering of a knockoff of Zeal V1 stabs” counter)

Well I had to take a second look, they have legs, but not the kind u usually clip. :thinking:

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Yep you’re right, do not clip anything. The legs you clip off of Cherry stabs is for a softer landing & most others do not have them. If you clip any of the legs on a Durock or Zeal it’ll have nothing to catch the slider on the top out.

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Friends don’t let friends use no-name stabs.

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Thanks for the heads up! There is a possibility they could be better than Cherry plate mounts, those have been middle of the road at best for years now. Although considering their competition was bottom of the barrel plate mounts maybe this will give them the kick in the butt to make them better finally LOL! Honestly if they just widened the outside of the housings while keeping the inside measurements the same on Cherry plate mounts they’d be much better IMO. They biggest issue I have with them is they don’t fit tightly into plates. For a quick fix wrap electrical tape around the the sides of the stab openings to shim the housings tight. That kills a ton if not all the rattle with Cherry plate mount IME.

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I bought some cheap ones (can’t remember where I purchased them though) a while back and I could definitely tell them apart from my zeal stabs. Zeal stabs are way more expensive but they are quieter than my cheaper ones.

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I have and use Zeal, Durock, Cherry, and C3’s.

I’m really impressed by the C3’s… I feel dirty b/c TKC is one of the most expensive vendors so I usually steer clear of their GB’s. I think mine are R2 and have had no issue with PBT, GMK, and KAT.

Zeal would be second, followed closely by Durock and then good ole reliable Cherry.

Most of my boards are RAMA so not a very diverse group.

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Funny enough, I just saw this on Zeal’s instagram story.

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Neat! Thanks for sharing this. Your move Durock.

Did GMK Stabs fall out of favor? I’ve used those for a majority of my builds based on general consensus when I started out years ago, and theyve always been great for me.

They’ve retooled their stabilizers a couple of times and from what I remember the ones that came out last year were generally rated below the older versions.

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I don’t have first hand experience as I haven’t built in about a year. General thing I’ve heard is that they retooled and aren’t as smooth and a lot of good competitors came to the market that are worth using.

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The GMK retooling flew under my rader. Thats a shame, they were a pretty nice cost effective option that were seemingly better than cherry/oem parts. But at least the market is getting lots of new options.

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