Trusting that these are in fact new and improved, I grabbed enough for a build. If the CJ switches speak to Gateron’s “polished” switch smoothness, then I think I’m in for a treat with these.
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Yes, people are curious about these.
I still want to know about those CAP Crystal Brown V2 that came out but are OOS.
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Shoobs published a review today: The smoothest switches ever? | Gateron X Review - YouTube
I’m on the fence between these and the Pro, which ThereminGoat seems to slightly favor over. I might end up getting a couple to try out with uhmwpe stems or something…
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Gonna be doing two builds for my Meridian one with Gat pro yellows & one with Gat Xs when I get my batch I ordered today. Figure as long as use the same plate material & stabs across both that’ll be about head to head as you can get LOL! Will definitely report back here once I get them both built & use them a bit.
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Thanks, I checked out the review. Shoobs’ switch opinions align with mine for the most part (excluding his love of long pole linears) so I feel pretty good about my purchase. The old Goat and I don’t always have the same take on switches, and he tends to judge lubed and un-lubed switches on the same scale (I get that he’s examining the stock experience) in which conclusions drawn wouldn’t match those from equally lubed (or unlubed) versions. I don’t have any Gat pros/x1 pros on hand to test against, but I can compare the CJ switches. I hope all these new switches and surface polishing techniques culminate in a Gat Ink V3, and doesn’t cost $1 a piece – one can dream.
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Very similar thoughts over here - I don’t particularly care for long pole linears and having read the praise the CJ’s polishing got, I’m really curious to see if these end up being “CJs with yellow sound” - plus, I’m a huge fan of the yellow’s spring.
Looking forward to your impressions.
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I find it pretty difficult to trust theremingoat since he tends to spend 4000 words talking about his day before reviewing a single switch. The fact he never uses a full keyboards’ worth of switches pretty much invalidates most of his opinions too imo, especially in regard to batch variance.
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Well said. YouTube or blogs, I hate when they ramble.
I hate even more when they try to be funny. Like bro, keep that for your twitch streams. I’m here for technical details and sound tests.
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To be fair, the point of the blog post is to be long form. Theremin is exploring his prose as much as the switches, and I appreciate it. I enjoy the background info and anecdotes. Life would be pretty dry and boring if writers ignored the entertainment factor – it would turn a Times article into a TL;DR. He does disseminate his switch performance opinions into white papers of sorts on his GitHub, if you only want those.
That being said, I tend to agree with some of the sentiment when it comes to YouTube. So many people drop in more memes and anime references than actual info of the switch. It probably boils down to age and the fact that it seems to be what younger viewers want. I can’t begrudge someone for catering to an audience that makes them successful, even if I find the video rather pointless myself.
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Well I got to messing around with my batch of Gat Xs & underwhelming is the best word I can use to describe them. I pulled out all my OG Gat yellows & my pro yellows to compare them. What I came up with is that Gat Xs are ever so slightly smoother than OG (all variants) & Pro yellows. Definitely not worth the price hike for them IMHO. However I will say there is something there & if Gateron can improve the polishing process these could be worth it. I have some OG milky top/black bottom browns, when I swap the Gat X stem into those housings they feel pretty much the same as in their stock housings. But the other way around (OG brown stems into Gat X housing) made for a noticeable improvement in smoothness. So the polishing process definitely helps, but it really doesn’t show in the Xs for some reason.
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I’ve come to the same conclusions – I think being an early adopter in this hobby has cost me a lot of money, lol. They are definitely better than the KS-8 and KS-9’s that I purchased like 3 years ago, but are absolutely crushed by the recent CJ switches which were only $0.08 more a piece (smoothest unlubed, stock switch that I’ve ever felt). Once lubed (205g0) and filmed, they are smooth for sure, and do sound pretty good, but they are still outclassed by the CJ, OP Blacks or any of my JWK switches that are close in price. Shockingly, my JWK Blacks (JWICK logo’d all nylon versions from the ElBoard GB before every other vendor put them up for sale) are smoother and better sounding at $0.24 a pop.
Comparisons aside they are a descent switch. No leaf ping is present. The springs must be lubed as they ping and crunch worse than Cherry switches though. Even after lubing, while not felt, there is a slight scratch noise when depressed – not nearly as much as the OG Gats. They do sound pretty deep once lubed, but still have that love it or hate it, distinctive Gat bottom-out clack.
If they were a quarter a piece I would be singing their praises, but not at over twice as much (not to mention the misleading vendor marketing copy). I’m still a bit shocked that they weren’t nearly as smooth as the CJ switches which tout a similar polishing process, but they are moving in the right direction at least.
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Sounds like Gateron needs to offer a Gateron X with the Brown stem already in it.
[unless that’s what Gateron CAP Brown already is, but I doubt it.]
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