geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Lazarus52980 on Tue, 11 December 2012, 13:16:25
-
Good afternoon all.
I have been looking into a mechanical keyboard for use at work. I do mostly typing all day and was looking seriously into a Cherry MX Blue keyboard. However, I am concerned I might annoy/alienate my fellow workers with the notice that some report. My question then is: How loud is a Cherry MX Blue keyboard? Is it viable in a "public" area?
Once this question is answered, I would also LOVE an opinion on which keyboard to get. I have been looking in different places, but I don't really know how to tell one from another for quality and such...
Help please!
-
It all depends on your coworkers I suppose. I'm typing on blues right now in my cube and no one has ever complained. I have a Model M as well, which is even louder.
Others have posted here in the past about coworkers or bosses not liking the noise at their workplaces though.
-
It really depends on your co-workers' level of tolerance. I had issues with my Model M until I grease-modded it. I have had blues for brief periods and had some grumblings. The high-pitch click seems to travel. Some people use them with no issues, but it's just going to depend on your neighbors.
-
It depend on the area. If it's dead silent, and you are the only one typing maybe it will be annoying. But it everyone else around you is pounding away on rubberdomes which make a lot of racket due to having to bottom out I don't think anyone can notice you. I used a Poker with blues for awhile and it didn't seem to bother anyone, or at least they didn't complain about it.
-
Alright, I guess I will have to take my chances with the noise. ;)
If my price range is up to $200, and I want a typist keyboard for business, does anyone have any recomendations on what keyboard to buy? I seem to keep coming back to the Roswill 9000, but I am sure there are better options...
Advice would be greatly appreciated.
-
Rosewills are great and affordable. I have two of them.
QuickFire Rapids are also excellent for the money, though they have a lot of visible branding on them which many don't like.
If you want to get a nice set of keycaps, you could go with one of these cheaper options and be fine with your $200 budget. Filco is usually the recommendation around here for higher end production MX keyboards. They are typically around $150.
-
$200 is edging in on Realforce territory... might be able to get a used 87u for that price. Sadly there aren't any I can see in classifieds
-
It's gonna be pretty loud.. especially if you bottom out. Even without bottoming out, your fellow workers will probably notice the new addition to sound lol. You could try investing in "o-rings" from wasdkeyboards which go under your key caps and helps reduce the noise and decrease the travel distance. If the "click" isn't an absolute necessity, but you still want the tactile feel, you could get Cherry MX Browns or Clears. You might want to do more research on those first though.
Feel free to browse our forum--your questions have been asked a million times over and it's not hard to find old answers :)
-
two of 4 coworkers in my room complained about my razer with blues. finally i disassembled it for spare parts.
-
I used to use a realforce 108U in my office never had a complaint until we got a female manager then all she did was complain but we tested it her hitting her rubber domes like she was using a hammer made more noise
-
I would avoid blues if typing around other people...it'll just be way too loud....
It's is possible your co-workers won't mind..but why even take that chance? Even with o-rings they'll be too loud...
Get browns or clears w/ o-rings, a Real Force as mentioned earlier....or a Matias Quiet Pro...
-
Welcome to Geekhack!
What they said, plus ... I use blues at work and it seems that the relatively high-pitched tactile click from the keys is similar to, but slightly quieter than, my mouse clicking. The biggest sound is from bottoming out the keys (i.e. pushing the key all the way down instead of stopping halfway down when it clicks and activates), which O-rings would help to dampen.
But then there is a guy here with a rubber dome keyboard, and he likes to really pound his keyboard sometimes, making more noise than me.
Or you might consider MX greens - basically blues with stiffer springs. You still get the tactile click, but because of the stiffer springs you are less likely to bottom out, and when you do it is with a bit less noise.
-
That is an interesting thought... I will have to look into that. Are the greens common and easy to get on say...Amazon.com or other such sites?
-
Greens are rare. Just at the moment there is a QRF and a Ducky with greens available in limited quantities.
-
To add another anecdote there are four people at my office with MX Blues. The office is bull-pen style with 37 people laid out over about 5,000 Square feet. Three of those people sit within about 20 feet of me but not closer than 12 feet. I only really hear one of those three typing because he pounds on the keyboard. It does not bother me. The last person I can't hear at all he is over 50 feet from me but I'm good friends with the person who sits right in front of him almost exactly 6 feet away. The noise drives him up a wall but he wont say anything out of a desire to be polite. MX Browns, any kind of Topre, might be more considerate and frankly I like Topre better anyway.
-
The real annoying noise is the spacebar imho. Can't really quiet that with orings.
-
I've used Blues now in two different offices. My last boss mentioned jokingly that he can tell when I'm IMing someone because he can hear me typing quickly. Right now, I'm currently using a Model M at work.
-
Most people are a little alarmed by the sound of blue switches at first, but it's no a terrible thing by most people's opinions.
-
My workplace is somewhat open plan. Workers are typically about six to eight feet apart.
When I joined, I brought an MX Brown keyboard with me. Co-workers who tried it liked the keyboard action, and about six of them decided to buy nice keyboards as a result. I warned about the noise of MX Blues in an open-plan office, but everyone purchased blues anyway. (Except for the one who went with the full model M).
So put me in the "The noise drives him up a wall but he wont say anything out of a desire to be polite." camp, too. And I suppose I sort of brought it on myself, really. Now I wear canalphones all day. And type on Topre switches.
-
lol^
Topre switches are much quieter from what ive heard, but will run ~$50+ more on your budget. I've yet to try a Topre switch board but from what I see the Realforce are VERY solid and sound quite nice, while not being overly loud.
-
My office is pretty noisy so I've only had people say anything tongue in cheek. I even caught my boss having a play on my board today and he seemed to like the feedback of the clickety clack.
I think people with long nails hammering on a laptop or rubber dome finger killer (i.e. the girls) make more noise in the round than I do on the blue.
If its ultra bad though you can always do an o-ring mod
-
I use a Cherry MX Blue in a cubicle. When I compared it to bottoming out on the rubber dome, the noise level was about the same. But the Cherry MX Blue did have a higher pitched noise, which could annoy some people. I think it depends on the sensitivity of the co-worker. A workplace is inherently noisy, and as long as anybody isn't singing opera, I don't have much trouble blocking it all out.
Nobody had said anything yet, but our office has other concerns, like people talking on the phone, people with annoying voices, idiot co-workers. The sound of the keyboard is the least of our worries.
I used the blue o-rings from WASD for a couple days on my Cherry MX Blue keyboard to reduce key travel, but it didn't do anything to reduce the noise from the click. Also the blue o-rings have a softer landing, so the key return was a little slower when it bottomed out and I actually made more errors with my typing. Maybe a harder set of o-rings will not have the same issue.
Again these all are personal experiences, and I've found that you can only really know with keyboards until you buy the thing and use it. These mechanical keyboards has such good resale value, so it's always easy to recoup much of the cost if you want to get rid of the thing.
-
If it's too loud, you can order o-rings from WASD
-
If you're really worried about noise, you could always go for the Matias Quiet Pro (http://www.matias.ca/quietpro/pc/). Check out the sound clips (which are pretty high quality) to compare.
-
I personally recommend topre, reds or browns (in that order) in a cubicle environment, but that's just me. If you're concerned that someone might complain, I personally wouldn't do it at all (use blues at work).
-
Why not blacks over reds, maybe bottom out less with the stiffer spring?
-
It's not really as bad... if cubemates complain too much a small something... a $20 pair of earphones or something like that... should appease them enough. But then at that point you want to think is it really worth having the privilege of typing on a mech. board at work. Maybe you type all day; every day and it's worth the extra trouble. Maybe you're only typing about 45 minutes a day, and you'd rather suck it up and buy a different switch.
On the other hand, it'll be much harder to slack off with a louder keyboard -- your boss could then immediately tell whether you're working or not just by the sound from your cube.
-
On the other hand, it'll be much harder to slack off with a louder keyboard -- your boss could then immediately tell whether you're working or not just by the sound from your cube.
Another reason I lone using the Model M at work. It sounds like I'm typing twice as fast as I am. I am a horrible typist but people think I type at 100WPM.
-
I will second that MX Greens are quieter than MX Blues because you will unlikely bottom out on every key press. It is hard for me to not bottom out on Blues.
-
On the other hand, it'll be much harder to slack off with a louder keyboard -- your boss could then immediately tell whether you're working or not just by the sound from your cube.
Depends on the work you do. Most people think that software devs spend most of their day typing. In reality, more than half my day is spend reading and understanding code. However, if you're something like data-entry, or transcribing, then yeah... it'd be a fair indicator.
-
Cherry MX Clear switches have good firmness, outstanding tactility, and are quiet.
Good luck.
-
Ok, there are two things that have been mentioned that I have never heard of before. Torpe switches, and a "model M". Could anyone explain what those are to me? I am by no means set in my ways about what I am going to get, but I jsut want something good for typing. I intend to use this keyboard for quite a few years (so far I am almost 6 years on the same rubber dome keyboard) so if i need to pony up an extra $50, I am willing to do that.
Anyone have a website that shows where I could purchase something with CHerry MX Greens, torpe keys, or a "model M" keyboard? (or at least a model of keyboard I can try to get off of Amazon...)
EDIT: I have been looking for MX Green keyboards, but I keep running into ones without a 10 key... Is that normal? Why would they not have a "regular" keyboard with a 10 key? /confused
-
Ok, there are two things that have been mentioned that I have never heard of before. Torpe switches, and a "model M". Could anyone explain what those are to me? I am by no means set in my ways about what I am going to get, but I jsut want something good for typing. I intend to use this keyboard for quite a few years (so far I am almost 6 years on the same rubber dome keyboard) so if i need to pony up an extra $50, I am willing to do that.
Topre switches are used on Realforce and some Happy Hacking keyboards. Pretty pricey. Those boards are quieter than most Cherry MX switches and way, way quieter than an (IBM 1980's era) Model M. The latter uses a buckling spring mechanism and is quite noisy. The wiki isn't as complete as it could be given the number of experts on the forum but its probably useful for you to check out: http://wiki.geekhack.org/index.php?title=GeekHackWiki
EDIT: I have been looking for MX Green keyboards, but I keep running into ones without a 10 key... Is that normal? Why would they not have a "regular" keyboard with a 10 key? /confused
At the moment Greens are considered an enthusiast's enthusiast switch. "Tenkeyless" (TKL) boards are also pretty hip. So any manufacturers that are using Green switches are likely to drop them into a TKL frame.
-
IMO, Cherry MX Blue and buckling springs are the ones you're looking for.
You can get a cherry G80-3000 keyb with MX blue for really low price. For buckling springs get an used IBM model M or a new Unicomp.
I personally preffer Buckling springs for typing, but MX blue are also great. I use at work buckling springs and cherry mx blue at home and noone complains about noise :D
-
From what I am understanding from some reading on your site, I could potentially just purchase an MX Blue keyboard, and then if I wanted to, I could replace the blue switches with green ones if the spirit moved me to do so. Is that right? (That assumes that anyone sells the green ones, since they seem to be rare)
I also looked into a torpe keyboard, but holy cow! $350+ just to start with... I might need to work a few more years on my current keyboard to be able to justify that...
-
as long as you know how to desolder, have at it.
-
From what I am understanding from some reading on your site, I could potentially just purchase an MX Blue keyboard, and then if I wanted to, I could replace the blue switches with green ones if the spirit moved me to do so. Is that right? (That assumes that anyone sells the green ones, since they seem to be rare)
I also looked into a torpe keyboard, but holy cow! $350+ just to start with... I might need to work a few more years on my current keyboard to be able to justify that...
Topre , short for Tokyo Press (which should also help you with pronouncing it properly :p)
& no? not $350+, but $275... well.... ya: http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards
To replace switches you will either need to desolder them all, or replace stem and springs which is only possible on a PCB mount keyboard. Most are plate mount, and VERY few plate boards have the ability to take their switches apart (KBC Poker? I think is the only OEM that lets you) & I have yet to see anyone selling MXGreens