Suggestions & Recommendations for this situation I now find myself in!

Learning and discussion Custom keyboards
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I’ve been using a Corsair K70 2.0 since 2020 with MX Cherry Brown switches, and recently impulsively decided to get a 75% Keychron K2 HE for the hell of it.

I’ve using this for a few days now, and as much as I do love being able to change actuation settings, and the more muted, thocky sound of typing, something in the back of my mind misses the tactile/sound feel of knowing I pressed my key and can stop pressing past that point and bottoming out. Or maybe I just miss what I know and feeling awkward with something new.

Admittedly my fingers have been a little sore the last week or so as I’ve been grinding hard in gaming and WASD are frequently held down. I am not sure if these HE linear switches are helping or making things worse. The K2 HE came with Gateron Nebula switches, which feel a little more firm for me coming from the cherry browns, so I just ordered Gateron dawn switches to see if i like them more since they are a little lighter. Still just extremely torn on HE switches after using a tactile mechanical keyboard for so long. The build quality on the K2 HE is truly amazing, and does feel premium, which I do enjoy quite a bit.

If I ended up getting a mechanical keyboard with tactile switches, Do yall have any recommendations on switches similar to cherry browns, but way better quality / more tactile feedback but also maybe silent/thocky sounding? I heard Outemu Silent Yellow Jade or cream yellows might be good, but in the market for switches there are just way too many and I am a bit overwhelmed.

Also, is there a good keyboard I can look into which come with these switches already?

I’ve browsed the Keychron Q1 Pro, GMMK 3 Pro, M1W v3, Rainy 75, but nothing really stand out except maybe the Q1 Pro.

3rd option is to stick it out with the K2 HE, and keep my corsair in the mix to change things up here and there…but idk! just wish the corsair was hot swappable.

Not completely opposed to fully building my own, but theres so much more to it it seems, with padding, stabilizers, plates, foam ect

Thanks in advance for any recommendations and suggestions!

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Hello and welcome!

I’m not sure if they’re any good, but I did see an ad for Gateron magnetic tactiles the other day.

I’m otherwise a fan of TTC’s silent switches; Silent Bluish Whites for tactile, Frozen Silents for linear. They have a satisfying thud, IMO

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Linear switches can feel uncertain when switching from tactiles.

There’s a reason that a lot of office keyboards promoted at least a light-tactility. Some office ergonomic studies have suggested that light-tactility reduces bottom-out, and prevents you from using more force than necessary.

Things are much better now for building silent tactiles than they used to be. For something a little more tactile than MX Brown, look into TTC Silent Brown V2 / Peanut Latte or OUTEMU Silent Lime V3.

For a silent medium-tactile, there’s Kailh Deep Sea (Whale) tactile, and the aforementioned Silent Bluish White, which is pretty punchy.

A step up from that are the OUTEMU Silent Cream Yellow / Silent Jade. They are almost the same. Some say that the Wuhai Jelly Purple are even better.

Then, there are the silent heavy-tactiles. U4 Boba are a well-known example, and you can also find WS making a heavy silent-tactile.

I’ll tell you about keyboards in a moment, but let me just say, the silent-tactiles that are ready out-of-box are the OUTEMU Silent Jade / Cream Yellow and the Wuhai Jelly Purple.

They are factory-lubed pretty competently. So you don’t have to do anything. And the OUTEMUs are cheap.

The Kailh Deep Sea (Whale) aren’t lubed, and aren’t as quiet. But if you like a muted, thocky sound, these deliver arguably more than MX Browns do. You can dial down to Kailh Midnight Pro (silent) if the Deep Sea are too much. You can just use them in stock form.

There are no custom keyboards I can think of that come with silent-tactiles already-installed. But that’s fine. You can enjoy personalizing one to your requirements.

All of the Keychrons are fine. Probably the Monsgeek, as well. More assembly with those. There are some super-budget 75% keyboards that allegedly have good sound. Some are almost fully pre-built, well under $100, whereas others are custom kits approaching the $100 mark.

Let me know if you are interested in those kits, there are reviews here.

Anyway, my advice to you would be to take advantage of the current AliExpress sale. Maybe Amazon is matching. I can direct you to a site that is selling the aforementioned OUTEMU and Jelly Purple switches. If you order a few cheap 10-pack samples from them, you can ask them to include a few other switch samples that you are curious about.

Putting silent tactiles in a 75% keyboard is a very viable option. It’s just a matter of which tactile, and which keyboard.

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I was trying to order the silent bluish whites and the frozen silents from amazon but there was no prime option, would be a few weeks sadly, so I was wondering if I might be able to find them elsewhere? I was also shocked to find they were both way more expensive than the others I ordered to try out, which are: Akko Rosewoods linear, Outemu silent lime v3 tactile, and KTT Matcha Tactile. Are any of these solid enough for long hours of gaming? I went with the lightest I could find until I can find the bluish whites / frozen silents.

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So I just ordered 3 different keyboards on amazon to try out, will send the 2 I don’t like back: Corsair K65 Pro, Rainy 75 Pro, and the Lemokey P1 Pro. We shall see how the stock switches feel, but as I mentioned above in another reply, I ordered the following switch: Akko Rosewoods linear, Outemu silent lime v3 tactile, and KTT Matcha Tactile… I went with ones with the lightest actuation force / lowest bottom out forces I could find which had decent reviews.

My next question is, where can I find these frozen silents linear / bluish whites tactile? Amazon has them but they are tiers more expensive than the rest, and also no prime shipping so it would take 1-2 weeks to get them. I think those might be my endgame switches for a linear and tactile set, but where else can I get them for a decent price?

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IIRC I’ve gotten those switches both from Lumekeeb and Milktooth; I think the latter might still have them on sale.

A note about the Bluish Whites; there are two versions. The “regular” version doesn’t have a silenced top-out, while the version with “Silent” in its name has dampening for both the up and downstroke; just be sure of which version you are ordering.

TTC’s silents are generally more expensive than Akko’s, Outemu’s, and KTT’s. For me personally, the difference in price is worth it, but your mileage may vary.

I’d say most mechanical switches today will stand up to gaming if they aren’t otherwise faulty - I think the base standard even for cheap switches is something like 20-million actuations, with plenty of manufacturers boasting quite a bit more; 50 or even 100 million actuations.

I’ve had the occasional rare switch that didn’t stand up to lots of use, but in each case it’s been some kind of immediately-obvious manufacturing defect I could otherwise return the switch for - most commonly electrical chattering, or double inputs.

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The regular Bluish White are half-silenced, the Silent Bluish White are fully-silenced. It’s possible that either may meet your needs, but the silent variant is obviously quieter.

In terms of being solid for long hours of gaming, the Silent Lime, Matcha, and Rosewoods should be fine. The Lime is a little more tactile than an MX Brown, much quieter. Matcha isn’t silenced at all, I think, but it should be a versatile switch. More of a medium-tactile.

The OUTEMU silents are often the quietest, but have the mushiest bottom-out. Like rubber-domes. The TTC and Kailh switches are less quiet. More of a balance between silence and firmness. Although custom-lubed TTC silents can be both firm and quiet.

The OUTEMU cheap silent tactiles probably have the worst quality control. But statistically, that may not be meaningful for your use-case. If they are in hotswap, it’s not a big deal as you can replace faulty switches, and they are cheap to begin with.

I have a TKL with OUTEMU Silent Lime V1 or V2, lubed with 3204, and they seemed to still be working after 2 years, last time I checked. I should point out that if using Matchas, they work fine out-of-box. However, they will sound better lubed with 3204 or something similar. Many people here would probably custom-lube them. Lubing will make them less-scratchy, and probably lower-pitched and more muffled.

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