I’ve been going deeper and deeper down the mech board rabbit hole, and while I normally stick with Reddit for my hobby discussions, I’ve found the keyboard community in there less than friendly to things like component comparisons or buying advice.
Currently using an NCR-80 as my daily driver, I’ve fallen in love with the sound profile of hollow plastic cases with a lot of room. No foam, no tape, just board and plate.
I prefer textured PBT caps with a nice sculpt to them and at the moment my switch of choice is the Zeal Clickiez (75g).
Outside of keyboards and keyboard accessories, I’m your average middle aged nerd; comics, D&D, video games, etc.
Looking forward to seeing where this community takes me on my journey for the best clicks and clacks.
I’m fairly new myself. It’s a good group, and there is much more room for conversation between the posts of new boards (which are also great!). My own interests are pretty far afield of the hobby’s current zeitgeist, but I always feel very welcome here.
I bet that board sounds great - I’m a big fan of hollow plastic chambers, too.
I think Zeal Clickiez are probably the chunkiest, most robust MX-compatible clicky around right now - but if you’d like to try other things, you might take a look at Gateron Melodics, which are more or less a spin-off of the Zeals. They also use a click-leaf, but it’s a lot smaller, making them kind of in-between Zeals and stuff like BOX clickies.
I only have one board right now that fits that description, but it is one of my favorites for its unique sound - a BBOX 60 with a generic 60% PCB & plate. The BBOX is a “universal” 60% plastic keyboard case that assembles like ye olde Revell beginner skill level model kits. They’ve been made in a ton of colors, and they use the traditional tray mount:
Probably the most resonance I’ve gotten for the least money so far This case will fit a ton of different 60% PCBs at this point.
As for my overall favorite board right now, that’s a genuinely tough choice - but the Neo65 has been blowing my mind for its quality / price ratio. My Neo isn’t nearly as deep and resonant as my BBOX in terms of sound, but its sound is so clean and it feels so good to type on that I couldn’t not mention it.
Welcome, sounds like you’ll fit in just fine here! Yeah r/mk became more of a flexing ground & place for people to bitch about the hobby a long time ago. My best guess is that it is more frequented by the younger demographic in our hobby. Here we are very open to discussing all the ins & outs of the hobby. Also very accepting to other’s preferences, there is no right way to enjoy the hobby IMO & that seems to be the prevailing mindset here.
Nice sounding daily driver, you’ll have to post some pics of it if you haven’t yet! I’m a fan of the vintage board sound & feel too! With your tastes you should definitely checkout SKCM ALPS switches & vintage boards with them in it. Doesn’t get much better for a loud, resonant, plastic, clicky build for a lot of us. Although all vintage boards with SKCM ALPS in it do use a steel plate. I’ve seen a few custom builds with ALPS going half plate or plateless, but since the switches have no fixing pins it’s not really the best fo the switches or aligning them decently LOL! Anyways welcome to the site!
This case will fit a ton of different 60% PCBs at this point.