In the mechanical keyboard realm there has been a long and never ending fight between Topre users and the rest of us...
I don't think there is that much of a "never ending fight"...
Now you're even fighting about whether there's a fight or not. :?D
The obvious solution is to have one of everything, and rotate between them as you please...
Owning one of everything that interests me (which is almost everything), then rotating between them is my goal. As a keyboard enthusiast, I find that rotating between different boards to be great fun...
It's the greatest! It really makes you understand why harems and bigamy were so popular.
I'm not really a keyboard enthusiast. I work on them and they're a tool for me. I don't mod mine other than adding a few different color keycaps. I would rather stand buck naked and be pressure washed than take a keyboard apart and add some rubber bands or solder some switches.
Are we limited to just one type of thing or the other, though? Because the pressure washing sounds really good to me, especially if I could get a tall, muscular babe dressed up like Wonder Woman to do it.
I've got a *good* RB keyboard sitting here next to a Realforce 55. Actuation and force/distance feel almost exactly the same, but the Realforce is more solid in travel (keys don't rattle about) and sounds nicer.
I have here some examples of a Dell QuietKey RT7D5JTW (one of the good ones, made in Thailand) and an H-P C3758A (designed by HP, made by Key Tronic). They're high-quality, pleasant-sounding RD boards with crisp, responsive, wobble-free travel. I got them NIB on eBay, and they were about $200 less than your RealForce. That was for
both of them.
I might like the Topre a bit more, but not
that much more. If I did like it more, it's probably be because I could sit there thinking, "Hah! I'm typing on a goofily expensive keyboard that lots of other people would like to have, if they didn't prefer stuff like food and clothing."
Okay, I agree, the Topre sound is cool. But hey, you don't have to
buy something that can be digitized. That's so 20th century. Just download an audio sample of a Topre and set it up as your keypress sound. Voila. I even have a friend who can do a convincing Topre impression with his mouth—
thok, thok! It's silly spending all that dough for something that's so easily simulated. Right now, there's a bunch of guys in an executive suite in Tokyo laughing about that and getting ready to jet off to their private islands.
Comparing MX and Topre is like comparing Whiskey and Vodka. They're both spirits, but they're completely different otherwise. Comparing a rubber dome to Topre is like comparing a cheap $10 bottle of scotch, and a bottle of Macallan 21. They're both scotch, and share some inherit traits because of that, but they're still so very different.
I realize there are lots of people who can tell what a "good" scotch is. But I don't actually know any of them. They were the people I used to play piano music for at country clubs and secluded resorts. They smoked $20 cigars and wore $1000 shoes. Give me a glass of Canadian Club on ice with a splash, and I'm just as happy as I could possibly be with a glass of 18-year-old aged-in-the-cask Wee Bonnie Dew o' the Heath.
I think a lot of that is just the power of suggestion, salesmanship and snobbery. A few years ago, I actually switched the remaining "good" scotch my wife had brought back from a trip with some CC (thinking I'd appreciate the difference—which I couldn't). At our next party, she served it around to her teacher, lawyer and doctor friends, and they were all smiling and complimenting it, telling her what a "full taste" it had, and so forth.
I bet I could put my HP's innards in a Topre case, take it to a KB meet and say, "Hey, Topre sent us this new prototype—check it out!", and everyone would crowd around and ooh and aah. "Wow, it's
quieter, but it still has that cool rubbery sound—it'll be great for the office!" "I really like the retro white keys with brown legends!" They've shortened the travel so you can type faster!" LOL. People are so suggestible.
Of course they are a preference. But people still like to argue about how the switches feel, not just how good they feel. It's something that numbers can't explain, you really have to try it to know it.
I understand the same is true about Jesus. It's not enough to read a bunch of numbered bible verses; you must invite Jesus into your heart and
try Him. At least that's what people tell me. As it happens, I have some imaginary friends I've had since I was a kid, so I already know them well and it doesn't make sense to switch to someone else's. They also give me candy, and whisper winning lottery numbers in my ear. Let's see Jesus do
that.