Best keyswitch

[webwit]

Sponsored by:

Voters have a chance at winning 3 keycap sets, a grab bag, and SP hats from Pimp My Keyboard/SP!

Winner:
The official nominees in the Best keyswitch category were:

• Vintage Cherry MX Black
• Kailh BOX White
• IBM beam springs
• IBM buckling springs
• Cherry MX Ergo Clear

The Wingnut, as voted for by the keyboard community, goes to...

Spoiler:

Vintage Cherry MX Black
The vintage Cherry MX Black is the original MX switch. In production since 1984, it was an instant hit, and the modern variant still lies at the heart of the mechanical keyboard world today. The vintage variant of this linear, medium weight switch is told to be smoother than the new ones.


It all comes back to black. Modern on the left (smaller Cherry logo) - Vintage on the right (larger Cherry logo).

Runners-up:

Spoiler:

2nd place: Kailh BOX White
The Kailh BOX white is a new clicky, light tactile, 50g switch, using Kailh's new clickbar design to produce those awesome clicks. Kailh claims the BOX switches are IP56 waterproof/dustproof. It's great to see such innovation.

Kailh white BOX switch review by Chyros.

3rd place: IBM buckling springs
The famous, legendary, and downright notoriously loud IBM buckling spring is a mainstay of the mechanical keyboard realm. IBM made the king of click with an unusual design of switch where the spring buckles outwards instead of compressing. Buckling spring is at the heart of IBM's highly prized Model F and Model M families of keyboards.


Buckling springs from a 1996 Greenock blue label IBM Model M, made in Scotland, from girders.

Honorable mentions:

Spoiler:

Cherry MX Ergo Clear
A classic but still amazing, the Ergo Clear mod is a Cherry MX switch that has been modified with a slider from a clear switch and a lighter spring, and lubrication for extra effect. They feel somewhat like the Cherry MX Brown switch, but with a bigger, longer tactile bump.

Ergo Clear Mechanical Keyboard Modification.

IBM beam springs
The IBM beam spring was used in almost all of the keyboards that IBM designed during the 1970s, and has, since its rediscovery, a wide following of fans who regard it as the best switch.


Beam springs from below, showing the fly plates.

[mike52787]

Yay! my nomination won!

[7bit]

... and I voted for them.


Typed with my Tipro using MX black vintage switches.

[andrewjoy]

I think its fair that the best of the cherries won .

< insert autistic screeching on why green alps did not win>

[cookie]

Sixty would be proud, wherever he is. Salute to him and congratulations to the best MX switches ever made!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Apparently, the winner was "an instant hit" — how on earth do we know this, when we know next to nothing about the early years of Cherry MX? Cherry MX has its own Dark Ages from 1983 when it was introduced, until the late 80s when you started seeing all the MX and Alps keyboards from the likes of Monterey and Chicony. In fact, it was claimed that MX Black wasn't even black originally — this seems unlikely now, although a clear version does exist.