When I found out Drop had plenty of extra DCS sleeper sets I was very happy to pick one up. I don’t have time to write a full review, but here are my abbreviated thoughts:
- Typical DCS thinness, however this gives the keys a bouncy feel and a distinct sound that is pleasant
- Signature Plastic’s “Cherry Style” legends are copies of old GMK molds - if you look at GMK sets from early in the hobby you can see that Cherry sets used to come with the same bizarre # symbol, fat $, and chubby ! (among others) that you find on DCS
- Super sharp legends with great contrast
- While this isn’t a review of the profile in general I really like the slightly more aggressive sculpt of DCS
Biggest downside:
- 1u keys in row 4 have the pull tabs on the front of the keys and so are visible and ugly (if you are using HHKB or WKL your Alt keys will have the pull tab marks on the front)
- I wonder if this is because DCS is supposed to have Row 5 and Drop/Mito decided not to run this set with Row 5
Biggest surprise upside:
- I forgot about all the DCS double shot novelties that SP used to run for the community and they fit with the new DCS sets perfectly
- You can find a bunch of these golden oldies over on Keypop
I leave you with a picture of DCS Sleeper (with two, very old SP novelties, not the standard accents) and a picture of an old GMK set that has the same weird num row legends:
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I’m typing on this right now, mixed with a GMK set. The accents are very nice.
And they line-up well with and almost colour-match an ePBT spacebar.
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Any take on what switches you like best with DCS? From what I’ve tried in the past, I seem to remember I liked them on light linears, light tactiles, and clicky switches.
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I find them to be very pleasant with a mid-weight linear. Right now I am using 63g L3 Durocks with them and it’s quite nice. I have not tried them with tactile switches.
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Good question, and very relevant.
The sole reason I am typing on DCS right now is that they are hands-down the best keycaps for my worn-in pre-tooled Browns.
The pre-tooled Browns are terrible when new, very scratch, ping, chalky. But when worn-in they become more buttery.
Thick PBT keycaps just kill the limited tactility and feel of the switch. And thin PBT isn’t usually a quality keycap. OEM-profile is too tall and wobbly on stock Cherry switches.
So they’ve got to be ABS, and they’ve got to be short. There’s GMK, but I tested it alongside DCS and DCS beat it hands-down in terms of sound. GMK is sharp, chittery and high-pitched like an AR-15, DCS is lower and clackier, or even thockier if it’s WYSE.
As everyone will tell you, the thin DCS in particular lets you feel the full tactility of less-tactile switches that are drowned by heavy PBT keycaps.
So, long-story short, DCS sounds better and feels better with pre-tooled Cherry Browns. I also have DCS Sleeper accents on a keyboard with Everglide Jade Greens, and they are okay there - another light tactile. So they are the best keycaps for factory Browns and okay with somewhat heavier tactiles like Jade Green.
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Okay, okay. Here’s my confession of laziness. I own 3 DCS sets. I have every type of switch you can think of. So, you guys got me curiuos enough to acutally put in some work.
I put my old (2008) cherry browns in my M60-A and put DCS Red Alert on them. I just can’t do it. These browns are too chalky. It is interesting though how much you can feel it through the keycaps.
Then I searched around for some lighter tactile switches. Most of what I own in tactile is medium, with a few medium-heavy. Top contenders were lilac, taro ball, and pewter.
For each of the switches, I tested with SA, Cherry (GMK), and DCS. Most of them sound best wtih GMK. Taro ball sounded best with SA. But we all know that sound is very subjective and will vary from board to board.
For feel, they all have the same tactility. But the Red Alert caps gave me an interesting sensaton of speed/lightness unlike the others.
TLDR - DSC feels pretty good on pewters too 
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Glad to know that DCS feels good on Pewter, I’m planning to seriously try Durock Light Tactile / Oxblood at some point.
So many DCS sets coming out now. Stuff that would be hard to find in GMK these days, like Solarized Dark. With more accurate colours [although I like the GMK].
The ironic thing for me is that even thick WYSE DCS is good with the light tactiles. These keycaps were meant for MX Black, yet they are nicest on MX Brown / Pewter, and the lighter linears.
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I was wondering if the mods were a gray like GMK Muted or a beige like Cherry OG doubleshots or CRP mods (or somewhere in between)? Every picture seems to vary with the lighting used so it’s hard to nail down from those alone.
They are most definitely gray in person.
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Good review. DCS is underrated IMO. I’m glad it’s finally getting more love from the mech community.
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Same. I still regret not buying dcs green tea all those years ago
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are the stem recessed like GMK?
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I’d have to double check as I don’t have any of my DCS sets installed right now. Although from memory they do, they sit at around the same height as GMK on a switch & go down far enough to have the bottom of the cap covered by the bezels of whatever board (obviously excluding boards with floating switch design).
