Seattle - I'm new here

[SuperSumo]

My first post, please be gentle.

I tried a few Cherry MX switches at PAX last year on the Coolermaster keyboards. I would love to try some more! I liked the MX Browns the best but would like to try Clears or Topres as they didn't have them at PAX. I've been to Best Buy but they didn't have a good selection.

Does anyone know of a place to try different boards and switches, or would someone let me try their board? I'm bummed I missed the last keyboard meet up at the beginning of the month, but my wife is pregnant and we have many other commitments right now.

Thanks!

[wheybags]

something like http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-keyboard ... r-kit.html might be a goo bet for cherry switches.
As for topre, good luck, you'll probably need to just buy one :p

[Muirium]

Waiting for another local keyboard meetup is the best way to go for a shot of Topre, and indeed other things besides MX.

The upside of a Realforce is it would probably be all the keyboard you could possibly need. A lot of MX stuff, like the Cooler Master boards you tried, is appealingly cheap but a bit of a slippery slope into the land of custom springs and aftermarket caps.

[Madhias]

Welcome and hello! A switch tester would be good to try out - but if you like MX Browns, and would like to test Clears, you will definitely l-o-v-e Topre!

[SuperSumo]

Yeah, even though it's my first board I want to spend lots of time doing research and trying before I buy. I would rather spend a few months figuring out exactly what I want and just get the best instead of going for a cheaper board and buying aftermarket changes/additions. That being said, as part of my research I want to try as much as I can first.

It seems I've missed a couple amazing group buys over at Geekhack which looked like they would have been perfect. I guess my timing has just been off.

[Muirium]

GBs are always like that. Stick around a little and you'll soon have too many of them to choose from…

The standard advice when someone says "get the best instead of going for a cheaper board", is to get a Topre and see if you like it. They're easily sold at little loss. Going straight for a high end board like that is likely to hit the spot quite nicely. In fact a common problem is when people find they're bored and start getting back into MX "just to check" that they're not missing anything, or to indulge in all those costly GBs.

What costs more than a high end board? A few rounds of those "aftermarket changes/additions" you mentioned!

[Evilcamels]

I dont know when there will be another Seattle meetup, but if someone tells me when it is, I would love to bring my keyboards along. I am posting in the March meetup thread to see if another one can get planned, I suggest you check that thread out for a possible meetup!

[nezro]

The standard advice when someone says "get the best instead of going for a cheaper board", is to get a Topre and see if you like it. They're easily sold at little loss.

In agreement here. I'm going in circles trying to get something that I really like, more efficient to just start from the top and work down. At least you avoid wondering..

[zslane]

For someone like me a lot of the nagging buying decisions are made for me by the fact that my #1 priority is compatibility with all the SA-family keycaps I will one day have in personal inventory. That means MX switches or hybrid Topre switches. A RealForce board is an exercise is all-or-nothing; it will either be what I want as is or it will just collect dust since I have no interest in hacking any keyboard apart from swapping keycaps (and a RealForce won't take my SAs in any case).

I was new to all this last month as well. I started with MX reds, chosen by predicting what I'd like based on past experiences with keyboards that I loved in the early 80s (read: linear switches and spherical keycaps). So far I only have DSA keycaps to put on the MX red keyboards I've acquired so far (Filcos mostly), but I really love how they look and feel. Can't wait to put the SAs on some MX reds or MX blacks!