I recently bought a FC660C silent thinking that it would be silent, but comparing the board to my Silent Alpacas, my FC660C is really loud. Am I misunderstanding that silenced != silent? A lot of the silent Topre sound test I hear are pretty loud even after lubing + silenced.
Would buying silence rings (either silence x or deskey #3) in combination with the purple sliders make the board even more silent? I definitely want to make the board as silent as possible so any tips on how to make the board extra silent would be appreciated.
I would not suggest replacement silencing rings over the ones that come stock with the purple sliders. Instead, I would suggest simply lubing. It will make the most difference, especially with regards to your stabilizers.
Yup, exactly. It doesn’t mean silent, just quieter.
Generally, take sound tests with a grain of salt, unless you have a way of contextualizing the sound levels. E.g., my HHKB with #2 rings is not loud (and it’s not silent). I can type on it without drawing the attention of anyone else in the room.
For tips, check out Goguma’s Topre modding thread that you posted in. That has most, if not all, of the information you’d need to get started with silencing.
“Silent” when it comes to Topre isn’t really silent. The entire assembly of the switch produces a loud sound by itself, 75-80% of which is dampened by the silencing ring. Compare that to silent MX switches which are much simpler to make silent.
I’d recommend lubing. Adding extra silencing rings on top of the ones on the purple sliders will greatly reduce key travel and doesn’t really do anything useful. Lubing will definitely help, especially in the stabilized keys, and I would also recommend adding dampening foam between the PCB and case as well.
P.S. Sound tests on YT are rarely accurate, due to differences in surfaces, microphones and background noise.