Well I wouldn't say that Topre is particularly silent in the case of a basic HHKB, but it is very quiet and not intrusive in its noises(the little plink and thock sounds) and I am hoping Norbauer's case makes it sound even better. Having something quiet but enjoyable is key for someone who plays games with voice comms(although lately I've been gaming with a friend who also likes keyboards and doesn't mind the sound of a model f's ping) and could be live streaming or recording videos. Add to that I also happen to like some rubber dome boards, like the Ornata and Apple Scissor switches. Having them in a crisper, lighter form with partway actuation just feels superb particularly compared to the Ornata, which my sister is now using and seems to enjoy over her old rubber dome board, probably just due to the light show.
It is silent compared to my box thick clicks, Alps, Matias, and capacitive buckling spring boards. I'm using box navies with a steel plate and aluminum case and rattly Costar stabs (Das Pro 4) right now.
It has been a while since I have really used mine (55g Realforce), since I really only picked it up to try them, but they seemed quieter than your average rubber dome. I couldn't comment on the Norbauer cases myself, especially when it comes to Topre. I actually kind of like how my F ATs sound, though I love how My F107 and F77 sound as well. The F AT is lower-pitched and lower-volume. It pings, but it is muted, probably because of the voluminous plastic case. The 4704 boards are noticeably louder and more pingy.
I rarely talk on a mic anymore outside of work, when I do I use a headset that mutes the mic when I fold it up into the earcup though, or use push to talk. I think I set up a foot pedal to do push to talk, since I already had some for ancient boards to map to the missing Windows key. I use a Corsair K70 with MX reds for games still though, so those don't really make any noise besides when bottoming out. I sort of want to use clickies for gaming, but I think it would wreck immersion. I know it did with capacitive buckling spring, and that's something that can at least be perceived as light tactility, but the sound was enough to make me go back to linears. I don't think I bottom them out very hard when gaming either way.
I haven't felt any modern dome switches I particularly like, especially scissor switches. There were some laptops that were ok, and my first desktop came with scissor switches for some reason. I did like that board, initially, but then I discovered mechanicals. I do like some vintage dome with slider mechanisms. NMB dome with slider is actually quite nice, not far off of Topre to my senses. Fujitsu Peerless and Focus dome with slider I like the most of the lot because they're attempting sharp tactility and clickiness (they don't do so great at the clicky part, but I do like them more than most tactiles, including all MX and clones).
I gave a Rosewill board with something like Outemu blues in it to a coworker as a Christmas gift. They seem to like it a lot, but I can tell her husband does seem to primarily be enthused with the RGB LEDs, like your sister.
Havent found a ton of Alps mount PCB's readily available and even if I did, getting switches is a massive pain and occasionally expensive these days, partly due to Chyrosran22. Probably him buying up all the alps stuff solely lol.
Chyros' videos definitely haven't helped with availability and pricing of Alps switches. He's probably why capacitive buckling spring has shot way up too on the used market. He goes by the shortened username I mentioned on here, and is pretty active.
Also I found out that the New Model F looses Nkey rollover if you use an adapter to USB C. Unfortunate, as I would have liked to have just one cable wired on my desk that I could just use to swap keyboards at will. Luckily only 2 games I play infrequently rely on having Nkey rollover for best performance. I'll be testing some aviator connector cables next to see if the issue can be rectified and I can swap by just screwing/unscrewing a parallel connector standard. Chance is that I won't be able to get it to do Nkey rollover without the stock cable. Though I could find a good beige paracord or PET sleeve and carefully edge it over a connector with some heat shrink to hold it in place for a more homogenous look.
I can't think of why you would lose N-key just going from micro usb to type c. Have you
looked at these? They're pretty popular around these parts. You could put a short micro USB extension in the F77 case, hanging out as a dongle, and have a micro USB magnetic connector on it. Then you could literally use the same cable for all of your relatively modern peripheral and mobile devices. I'm weird and
drilled out the case to mount a big GX12 female aviator socket in the case so that I could literally swing the keyboard around above my head and use it as a weapon without the cable failing. I may not do that with the others I end up with. I imagine I have N-key rollover, but I don't use that board for gaming.
EDIT: I do have to add after taking out my old Corsair board that the polycarb RGB housing reds feel a lot smoother than the nylon housings. And linears are optimal for keyspamming.
I imagine the two use different tooling, since the original housings had spots for single color LEDs. The RGB housing might have been made with fresher tooling. I would have to check on my tester again though, because I know that most of the Cherry switches on there felt better than those in the other type of housing, but I forget which.
