Imagine putting stock Gateron Yellows in a $500 keyboard. Now imagine doing it for 20. Weird but I gotta Subtitles are uploaded by me and are accurate Instagram: / jymvideos Reddit: / jymv Join my Discord: / discord
Hi all, I tried adding background music to make it a little easier to listen to. In hindsight, seems a little sensual, but let me know if I should keep or not!
Massive preach on the whole “sound test I listened to = keyboard bad/good.” Too many people go around linking a popular sound test saying this board sounded good, replicate the build, then come up disappointed. I made a vid as well back in the day just comparing how two different microphones could drastically “change” acoustics. I’m still surprised at how different it may be.
It kind of sucks to limit yourself to gat yellows but it makes sense when you're trying to be as objective as possible reviewing boards. I really appreciate your vids and the way you approach things in this hobby. Looking forward to the sound test videos!
Gateron yellows make a lot of sense to use to eliminate variables when testing. And they are pretty good at everything. They are un-offensive in every way. They are solid, always available and usually one of the cheapest options you can get your hands on. I'm honestly surprised more reviewers don't do this. Reviewing every board with yellows in them first would go along ways to giving you measuring points. What board adds what sound. You can't really say if nothing about two builds is the same. But if the caps and the switches are the same then you know it's down to the case and mounting.
Makes perfect sense! I highly appreciate the effort to maintain the control element in these comparisons (especially considering the PITA you have to go through to desolder them later if you want to replace them with nicer switches).
Love the transparency and detail in this video, I feel like this is something people don't take into account. And regarding sound tests, I also strongly agree with you there, and have tried far too many times helping newcomers understand that they most likely won't get a board that emanates "Fjell with lubed Holy Pandas Typing Sounds (retest)" energy. But at the same time have to deal with people who parrot "sound tests are not references" and dismiss any potential value they may hold. People really like to operate in absolutes sometimes and it's exhausting.
YES, gateron yellows are my favorite too. I use them for all my builds especially cause of the unique spring profile that is not found in many other switches. they are right in that perfect spot of not being too light like reds, nor too heavy like black's.
This is an amazingly scientific approach to the hobby, and I honestly appreciate it. It was a really awesome video to watch with a lot of considerations I've never heard others consider. Great Job. Get my sub.
You bring up some really good points. For me, I only have one keyboard that I slowly upgrade over the years so I take a different approach, but you did a good job of explaining why you do things this way. Good video.
Honestly, if you're going to go with any mass produced linear, the Gat Yellows are the way to go. They are my personal favorite because I like the more steeper pressure curve (more consistent pressure throughout the press) vs other linears, and they are reasonably smooth without lube, especially the SMD version. And you also make a lot of great points about consistency as well. Fantastic video!
Idk if its just me but I found this video very calming, you speak in a very professional manner and everything is just reasonable. Not aggressive, but not passive.
thank you for this video. I just got a new (pft it's actually my first) keyboard with gat yellows and I was a bit concerned at first because I had no idea what I was buying. I'm buying it for school rather than gaming because I'm not a gamer. So this video really helped me understand what I was buying so thankyou.
Testing and price aside, I like lubed Gateron milky top yellows better than any other switch. The fact that they're less than half and sometimes less than a quarter the cost of "higher end" switches just makes them even better.
Could you tell me which is the best 75% keyboard with hot swap sockets and rgb? The GMMK pro comes to mind but perhaps there's better and maybe even wireless options.
I have red switches but they are soft and i have typos often , I want to get a new keyboard, and I wm confused between gateron yellows and brown. Please suggest what should I choose.
I'm gonna go with yellows for my next build if I go linear. I have an SK61 rn (optical pcb) and wish they did yellow optical gaterons of the same weight, for some reason the yellow opticals are 35g :/ it doesn't really make sense since their other switches be optical or mx are the same weight. They have the same pre travel and everything else but just are 15g lighter. Maybe I'll get the yellows and spring swap with some 50g springs. But I too prefer tactiles and I may go with one of the Akko switches yet.
I figured that would be your explanation. Hmm, You could do reviews with the same exact set of yellow switches. Then put other switches in boards you've previously reviewed.
Basically, gateron yellows serves as your baseline so that you can somehow have a subjective basis for comparing each keyboard as opposed to using a different switch for each new keyb which blurs the comparison between keyboards because it changes the experience. This is also great since most of us only have access to gat yellows since its budget friendly and would have a real world reference to what you're describing on your videos. Well.. preach! that's actually a great and thoughtful idea :)
I've tried most of the hype switches on the market. I still love gat yellows. People need to realize price =/ quality. I've had bad batches of zeal switches many times.
Referring to your point at 4:12 about switch wear, after making a device that presses a switch 1 million times - in this case a Gateron Yellow - , I haven't noticed a discernible difference in the feel compared to a stock Gateron Yellow from the same batch. I want to try other switches which people claim to improve after a wear-in period like Creams before I make any conclusions though.
It kinda depends on your keycaps. I've got a Gateron Yellow I've used for 3 years, recently I swapped keycaps to something thinner (for another Gateron Yellow build) and the thinner keycaps accentuated the grittier feel and sound on the less-often used switches. Just pressing the naked switches also confirmed this, but throwing back the usual keycaps on muffled the difference. But yeah, wearing them in does do *something* and it can be felt if you look for it, but versus lubed switches it's not really that significant.
I use black ink v2 on my most used keyboard, started using them aftet trying stock yellows. I had crystal box pinks in my second most used board. Lining black ink V2s was such a hellish job the first time I didn't want to bother with yellows. It's the only think o hate about linear switches. Lubing. But for the past few days I've bene lubing a handful of yellows a day because I'm sick and tired of the pinks on my other board. Man yellows are great esp when lubed
Interesting. I also prefer tactiles, even in higher-end boards. I always feel like I'm sort of a minority when it comes to that, most people say they "move on from tactiles" as they get deeper into the hobby. What are your favourite switches then? :) Great video btw!
This makes a lot of sense. It’s pretty annoying to me how hard it is to compare keyboard reviews since such important elements of the keyboard are completely different between reviews
I've never heard of lubed switches having issues with glide. I never considered it, but it makes perfect sense if it dries out or becomes contaminated with dust ingress - especially in the excessively light layers that are applied. Compound that with the thin viscosity of boutique products that are used and I guess that's begging for issues of consistency and longevity. This video gave reason to my resistance to the lubrication rabbit hole, haha. All of the lubrication I've done to all components has been with the same 20-30 year-old tube of dielectric grease that my father used in his business of electronic repair. It's designed for use in motion assemblies for tape decks, so it's formulated specifically to resist drying out in under ambient heat and moving air while in use on wide contact tracks on both plastic and metal. I've always been liberal and lazy in application but only ever noticed an _increase_ in smoothness and sound dampening that plateaus after a week or so of use. About 4-5 years ago I installed Gateron Greens into a Logitech G610. I did a sloppy lube job on them and they felt/sounded fantastic outside of the horrid clatter. Given the hinted disgust for click jackets and the garbage keycap quality, I only touch it a couple times a year for MAYBE an hour at a time; but every time I do, it's always felt consistently good. This is all anecdotal, but given my success with such little effort and expense, I'm genuinely surprised how I've never seen anyone promoting a less arduous product/process.
Honestly I would buy jwks and not lube them. Gat yellows are a bit too much on low end not to get lube threatment while jwk are fine unlubed though of course nicer lubed. You can buy thousand of jwk switches, it will be for like 15 boards. Also alpacas, mauves, h1 will stay I would guess. Is it more expensive? Yes. But it will let you enjoy he board more
they have silent gaterons. I did typing test with silent gateron optical yellows. They're really quiet. You can just get gk61 50 bucks then add another 35 for gateron silent any color. opticals. Then pop in no solder.
Anyone shuffling their switches at the very least periodically to introduce even switch wear? I do it once every month, not even kidding, I also use it to fully clean the whole board.
Of course it makes sense that you'd be a Gamers Nexus viewer, given how conscious you seem to be about variables in testing 👍 This sounds like a 2-way ego stroke but I really don't mean it to be lmao
Box blacks I feel are not as representative of "regular" mx style switches. Also despite what kailh and novelkeys says, I've experienced keycap stem breakage and stretching with box switches so I don't use them at all
