Do all MX Blues have the same loudness?

[WiL11o6]

My Filco with blues came today and I am typing on it right now. Typing wise, it feels much better to type vs my Rosewill with reds. I have never tried blues and have only read about it being clicky, but this is pretty loud! It is 12:30am right now and all I hear is clickity clack. I was playing BF3 at first and again, all I could hear is the click and clack noise. Of course, since I am not used to it yet, I am putting 100% of my attention to the noise rather than playing the actual game or what not, but are all blues this clicky? Or is it just Filco blues are clickier.

[wompwomp]

In theory, yes. Every MX blue switch itself should sound the same, but you must take into consideration keycaps, if PCB mounted or not, keyboard frame, and etc. All of these things effect the way the MX blues sound.

[spikeh]

Depends on whether the switches are plate or PCB mounted I'd imagine. Age may also be a factor as the switches' plastic working parts wears down.

If you want it to be clicky (by being 100% focused on the clicking sound), it will be clicky. See placebo effect and confirmation bias.

[shogrran]

Well I think supposedly mx blues are mx blues, but that is just the switch itself.

I had the liberty of comparing the feel of using a cmstorm qfr - mxblues with a razer bw - mxblues. The feel and sound is different if you ask me. So the overall build of the board affects it in some way.

[Squelos]

The keycaps change the sound of the keyboard.

I changed the keycaps of my BW, and the sound changed considerably. The keycaps on the BW are pretty fragile, and lightweight. you can break the stems quite easily.

[DalaiLameR]

The sound of blues can be altered by changing the following variables:

- PCB or plate mounted
- keycaps (ABS, PBT, POM)
- o-rings

The sound of the switch itself is allways the same (we germans to know our craftsmanship !!!!)
For me the combination of plate mounting, PBTcaps and O-rings makes the perfect mx blue experience, but that is highly subjective

[limmy]

If you use thick and heavy key caps, the sound coming from blues will be less resonant and have lower frequency. However, they will still click.

If you have 20 bucks to spend on caps, I would recommend trying Cherry POM keys sold at Signature plastics. The set is only for letter keys, however. I bought them for 10 plus shipping. POM keys are heavier than PBT keys and the particular POM keys are very thick.
http://www.keycapsdirect.com/key-capswhatsnew.php (It is the black set)

Also here are some typing videos of the Cherry blues with thick PBT caps. Leopold 700R is sold with thick PBT caps and some cherry blue users in KBDMania were not happy with the feel because the click sound was less noticeable compared to other boards.
FC700R - Cherry blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8reAkSgR2bk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uOpVBLMPd8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PChAU-PuOXY (Yes, they are cherry blues!)

Since recording conditions and devices are different, I don't think it is accurate comparison, but if you compare the above videos with these, the latter are more high pitched.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdAE7pj4d90
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JggEpECGXn8


This is because heavier material produce lower frequency sound, and the order of specific gravity for materials used for keys are the following: ABShere, part of my English translation posted here)

As a final word, if you don't like clicky sound, I think it would be best if you trade with other non-click switches, as blues will still make clicky sound no matter what key caps you put on. If you want to experiment, I would recommend Cherry POM caps.

Edit: The POM keys are very slippery and F and J keys don't have nubs but is more curved. See "All about keys" wiki section 3.7 Nubbly, Nubby, Nubile, Nubian Nubs for more information.

[lowkey]

^^ I bought a set of those POM keys and they were so slippery they felt like they were always covered in grease.  Couldn't stand them, they never felt "clean" to me

[jspark]

I think it depends on plate, keycap and other materials.
You can simply imagine accoustic guitar.

[patrickgeekhack]

I just pulled out my Das and currently typing on it. Keep in mind that what I am going to say is subjective, but subjective is important since everyone experiences things differently. Someone scale is different from someone else's scale even if both scales go from 1 to 10.

Anyway, the keys feel lighter and quieter on the Das than on my G80-3000. The first one is plate-mounted whereas the second is PCB-mounted. Interestingly, I found that this feeling also applies to brown Cherry in my case. My Filco keys feel lighter and quieter than the keys on my Compaq MX-11800. Again, the first is plate-mounted whereas the second is PCB-mounted.