Author Topic: Alice-style board recommendations?  (Read 1292 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ClaireAbitbol

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 13
  • Location: BE
Alice-style board recommendations?
« on: Mon, 12 February 2024, 17:27:19 »
What's a good Alice keyboard with a deeper sound profile in the 100-300€ price range?
Arrow keys and VIA compatibility with at least one layer is basically a must as there's some keys not present on most 60-65% boards that I can't really do without.
Price point isn't an exact requirement as I could just save up for a more expensive board but I don't know if I can live with spending over 500€ on a keyboard excluding switches and caps.
Also not keen on entering a group buy, but again not a hard requirement, I'm basically looking for keyboards that are either currently available or will be available soon.

Been realising my Keychron Q10 is really not that great in terms of sound and I'm likely gonna need to get something nicer if I want a board that I'll be comfortable keeping for years. Putting back together my old cheap build out of boredom made me realise I was doing something wrong since besides the hollow sounding case and spring ping it sounded very deep and a lot nicer than my 200€ board.
I find that deep sounding keyboards are just what I'm into the most, from what I've heard gasket mount, FR4 plate and plastic (though alu feels a lot nicer to me) or wood cases seem to be what's best for getting a deeper sound profile, high pitched noises are just kind of unsatisfying to me compared to a deep thud on every keypress.

I'd also love to hear some recommendations for switches that would complement a deeper board too.

Offline dirtywretch

  • Posts: 4
Re: Alice-style board recommendations?
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 15 February 2024, 16:27:36 »
I'm using a Sneakbox Ava and it's got a deep thocky sound (POM/Gateron Inks/GMK Bordeaux) but it's expensive. I have tinnitus so I can't deal with high pitched noises. Falba Tech make wood keyboards if you're interested in that. That might be worth a look. The IV-Works Soul is $235 and it's acrylic and comes with an FR4 plate and hotswap PCB. The Weikav Record comes in aluminum and acrylic and it's cheap, but I'm not sure about plate options. So much of what makes a board's sound is the plate, any gaskets/foam, switches, keycaps, etc. Those are all decisions that need to be made to get where you want to go.