Gold

Hello, and welcome to Tisha Talks Switches. I'm Erez from ZSA, and with me here today is Tisha, our resident switch expert and support lead. How's it going, Tisha?

Hi, it's going pretty well. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. It's, it's interesting. You know, we're recording this early September, and here in Southern Ontario, the moment you flip to September, it feels like, okay, Fall is here.

[laughs]

The seasons are really on the clock, so it's been a cooler day here, but it's nice.

Right. Good. Here in Chicago, it was still blazing hot at the very beginning of September as it kind of has been in the late summer. But the last couple of days have been finally very pleasant. I would still prefer it cooler- [laughs]

[laughs]

But a 20 degree Fahrenheit [laughs] drop in temperature was still very welcome. So yeah, it's a nice day today.

That's awesome. So Gold.

Yeah.

Which for us also includes Thick Gold, now known as Bronze. [laughs]

Right. Which, yeah, the, [laughs] these are confusing names and at least, to me, the name change that should have made things less confusing actually just kinda makes things more confusing, but maybe that's just me. [laughs]

I'm with you. I mean, to me, Thick Gold is just a brilliant name for a keyswitch and I wish they just kept it. [laughs]

I, I do too because the change is confusing. Although, I never really understood what Thick Gold was supposed to really... what the thick part was really supposed to be. But anyway. [laughs]

I just liked it. [laughs]

Yeah, it is. It's a fun name, even if it maybe doesn't make the most sense of anything in the world. [laughs]

Yeah. I, I think that's half the fun. Like, "Okay, what is thick?"

[laughs]

Like "What's, what's thick here?"

Right.

Like, it's, it's great. And it, it sounds kind of like vaguely ominous and heavy. Like it's just a good thing.

[laughs] Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So, okay. So both are clicky and both are Kailh, right?

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Which one should we talk about first?

Well, so first off, I think we can mention a little bit what they have in common, which is that they're both Speed Switches, which means that they actuate right before the click. The actuation point is very high, so if you press the switch slowly, either of them, you will see the character on the screen kind of right before you hear the click.

Do you think it's possible to use them super, super lightly without having them click?

Yeah, technically that should be possible. It would be hard to do so consistently, I think. But yeah, I think it is probably possible.

Interesting. I've been thinking a lot about pianists and, you know, people trained in other disciplines. I wonder if like there's a skill set where you can train yourself to silently type on clicky switches. [laughs]

[laughs] Right. Well, if they're a Speed Switch, you probably could. But that would be, to me at least, and I can tell you that I am a trained, but not professional pianist. I've had decades of piano lessons, so a lot of experience. Trying to type that way, to me, requires quite a bit of tension in your finger and hand muscles. So I think, at least for me, it wouldn't be worth it because it's actually harder to type that way than to type with more force, if that makes sense.

It does. It's less ergonomic. I, I can see that.

Right. Because you're kind of straining against your natural hand and finger motions.

Which is interesting in contrast to, for example, the wrist rest, where we often tell people, "Don't use the wrist rests." And that when you're not using the wrist rests you are using your body to prop up the other parts of your body, but that seems more ergonomic sometimes, right?

Yeah, that's true. I think that that is maybe more about positioning than, I guess individual movements. That's just an opinion, though.

Right.

And it is coming from, [laughs] it's the opinion of someone who doesn't use a wrist rest.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Um, so-

And was a pianist right? I mean that-.

Right.

I think those two are related, but that's foreshadowing for maybe something that will come later, but yeah.

[laughs] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, the point is that these actuate very early in the downstroke, which some people really like, and some people don't really notice, and I would say a small proportion of people don't like.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

So if you know that you're someone who doesn't like that real early actuation, then you may not really be into these switches.

Do you think that increases the, the very high up actuation, does that increase the chances of chatter? Chatter is when uh... Sorry, just wanna use kind of jargon.

Right, sure.

So chatter is when you press a key once, but you get more than one character on the screen. So is that more likely to happen with these?

You know, I'm not sure. Maybe. It does increase the chance of just plain accidental keystrokes. You know, you bump a switch by accident, or if you sit with your fingers on the keys when you're not typing, maybe you tap your fingers or wiggle them a little bit. You're more likely to get an accidental keystroke. Chatter, I mean maybe. But-

Have we heard from people... Like have people told us that?

I don't... We have heard from a few peo-... And by a few, I mean, let's say two or three in the past year [laughs] who have had some, persistently chattering switches that were one of the Speed Switches, one of the Kailh Speed Switches. But considering the number of people out there who have these switches, that's a really low number.

Right.

Low enough for me to think it's probably more just a fluke-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

and not a trend or... That's not really the right word. [laughs]

Not like a systemic issue?

Right. But I don't know, you know? I'm not enough of a either statistician or mechanically minded person to have a real great opinion on that [laughs] I think.

I hear. Yeah. But anecdotally, I mean, I agree. It's one of those things where just reading about the switch, I would think, oh, you might get chatter. But then so many people use it, and yeah, I, I personally also haven't really seen people say, "Oh, it chatters." So I, I guess they solved it somehow. Yeah.

Right, right. I think that they're probably not more likely than other switches, but that is just, I guess kind of an opinion. [laughs]

Yeah. No, that makes sense to me, actually, now that I think of it because in firmware we use something called the debounce, which basically allows the processor to filter out repeated presses if they happen, you know, if they're fast enough. So, it only lets out one.

Right.

And maybe that's what helps there. I don't know. So, okay. Should we talk about Kailh Gold first?

Sure. We'll talk about Kailh Gold, which is, you know, both of these switches are... If you could, [laughs] if you can think of key switches as fun, I would say both of these keyswitches are fun.

Oh, the switches are fun.

Switches. Um-

They are so fun.

Yeah. And the Gold is just a, I don't know, like a really crisp feeling switch.

Yeah, is that clicking, is that clicking Gold that I hear there?

Yeah, that's Gold. [laughs]

If you wanna put it close to the mic.

Sure.

What, what keyboard is it on?

It is in a, this is an ErgoDox EZ.

Oh, interesting. I have an ErgoDox EZ with Gold as well. I couldn't find my Thick Gold one, but I have a Gold one.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

I'm going to, I'm going to play it to the mic just because we always say, you know, don't trust these recordings. And maybe you can play yours. Same keyboard, same switches, different room, different mic-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

and I bet it's going to sound completely different.

Oh, yeah. Sure.

So, so here's mine.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, mine.

That was it?

Yep.

Oh, that was a short one, okay. I was like, I kept waiting for more. Do, do you wanna do a bit more?

Oh, sure.

Yeah. I think it sounds... I don't know. Well, we'll know in the audio. We'll know in the end how different it sounds.

[laughs]

But I have a feeling it sounds really different.

Right. Right, yeah. Me, too. I tend to use the Cherry MX Blue as the kind of baseline to compare other clicky switches to because it's a, a popular and well-known one. So, the Kailh Gold, to me, feels... I, I think the rating might be around the same, but it feels a little lighter to me than Cherry MX Blue. And I think it's because the tactile bump is a little less firm. Like Cherry MX Blue, I feel like you really kind of have to push through that bump, you know?

Yeah.

It, it feels like more of a stop. Kailh Gold, it's a little gentler. You don't really have to push through it quite as much. but-

It's really interesting.

Yeah. It's kind of a medium weight switch overall. It feels, it's got a nice substantial feeling under your fingers without feeling sluggish or overly, you know, heavy.

'Cause I also noticed that it feels somehow a little bit crisper than the MX Blue.

Yeah.

And I had always thought it's the audio. It's like the, the pitch of the click, because it's a... The click-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Like the audible click is, I would say it's crisper, right? Would you, would you... than the Blue?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I thought that's why, but it's... So it's actually maybe two things. Like it's one, the kind of more subtle actuation, and two, the audio characteristics of it, right?

Right.

Interesting.

Yeah. And it's got a, another comparison to the Blue is that I think the click is a little lower pitched.

Oh, lower pitched, because I just said higher pitched. Interesting.

Oh, did you? Yeah, I, I guess I didn't catch that. To me... So again, your mileage may vary, but the Blue has that almost like ticky click- [laughs]

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

for lack of a better word. It's, it's high pitched and tappy or, or ticky. So...

That was Blue.

That's Blue in a Planck, Gold in the ErgoDox. There's, I don't know. This is all, [laughs] this is all very spec-

Can you go like, can you go like Blue, Gold, Blue, Gold, like right one after the other a few times?

Sure. Um, just... Oops. I'm knocking over everything on my desk now. Um, [laughs] uh, just bearing in mind that, uh, they're in two different keyboards.

Yeah.

So I'll start with Blue and I'll alternate Blue, Gold, Blue, Gold.

Mm-hmm [ affirmative]. Okay. Yeah. No, definitely-

[laughs]

definitely lower pitched. I was wrong. It is, it is a lower pitch than the, uh, than the Blue. You're right.

It's like crunchier-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

sorta. I don't know. Yeah. Like a more resonant sound.

Cool.

Yeah. I also think that it feels a little springier than the Blue. Like, I think that the upstroke is a little firmer. Like when the spring springs back up, it does so a little bit more, uh, energetically- [laughs]

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

than the Blue does.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

So I guess what that means is that it feels a little bit lighter in the downstroke, but a little bit firmer in the upstroke.

Interesting.

These are pretty subtle differences, I think, but yeah.

Well, the whole thing is very nuanced, you know?

It is.

I was telling someone about, I was telling someone about the podcast the other day. Not a keyboard person, and I was trying to explain, yeah, no. We don't even talk about the keyboards. We talk about like-

[laughs]

the little parts in the keyboard. It took me so long. It took me like five minutes to explain it. So yeah-

[laughs]

nuanced. It's, it's definitely nuanced.

Right.

But it kind of goes with the territory.

Maybe their eyes glazed over and they quickly changed the subject. [laughs]

It was like, "Wait. You have a full podcast-

Right.

about, about keyboards?" I was like, "No, no, no. It's not about the keyboards. That's too broad of a topic. It's about the switches inside, right?" [laughs]

[laughs] Right.

Okay, so anything else we wanna say about the Gold?

I don't think so. I think that covers it pretty well. It's nice, kind of medium weight clicky switch. Nice medium weight clicky Speed Switch.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

There you go. [laughs]

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Quite a mouthful, but yeah, I see that's-

Right.

very accurate. And so then Bronze or Thick Gold.

Right. So another clicky switch. The things that it has in common are that it's a Kailh Speed Switch and it's clicky, but the Thick Gold/Bronze is really, kind of stands on its own because it's extra clicky. [laughs]

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

It clicks both on the downstroke and the upstroke. So you get two little clicks per keystroke.

That was so surprising to me when I first tested it. I was like, "Wait, is that really what I'm hearing?"

Right.

That's, it's, to me, that's awesome. Like, that's a very fundamental difference. That's actually not a subtle thing because it-

Right.

it makes it sound as though you're typing twice as fast.

[laughs] Right, yeah.

It's kind of awesome.

Right. So, if you're a fast typer it's, like it's a lot of sound. [laughs]

Oh, yeah.

It's not-

Oh, yeah.

It's not a, like a super loud click. It's just a lot of sound.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Yeah.

And the downstroke and the upstroke clicks are subtly different, right? It's not the same click. It sounds a bit different, down and up.

Right. Yeah, the up is a little... The downstroke is the, the main click and the upstroke is almost like an echo.

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. That's cool.

Yeah. Otherwise it is, I would say, a little lighter feeling than the Gold with an even gentler feeling, tactile bump, like tac- tactil- tactility... What? Tactile-ness-wise. [laughs] It's fairly gentle. It's not a, it's not a big bump.

So you've got a lot of oomph, a lot of noise and kind of feedback-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

for not a ton of input from your side. Like you don't have to like really push hard to get that sound out. You're just-

Right.

Yeah, you kind of type gently and get a whole click fiesta-

[laughs]

on the keyboard.

Right, exactly. And I would say it is a slightly, just very slightly higher pitched click than the Gold, probably sitting between the Gold and Blue as far as click, pitch [laughs] goes, and maybe just a touch softer sounding. So overall I would say it's a gentler, softer switch than Kailh Gold, but with more clicks. [laughs]

Right. Really interesting. I really enjoyed, back when I was using a clicky switch, I really enjoyed the Thick Gold. I used it for a good year or more-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

and I never thought of it being gentle, but it is. It's actually easy to type on.

Right.

Which I think, again, is part of why I like, the Silver so much, going back to the Silver because you don't have to work hard. You just kind of type and, and it's easier for me to get into flow there. And some people say that clicky switches help them get into a state of flow, kind of help, I don't know-

Sure.

create a soundscape of productivity. I don't know. As you're

[laughs] Right, yeah.

getting your thoughts out. And I think maybe this combo of, yes, it's super clicky. It makes a lot of sound, like you say, but it doesn't require too, too much effort to actuate. That sounds like an interesting combination in terms of flow.

Right, yeah. I think it can, it could be almost like a white noise generator.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

If you're typing fairly quickly and yeah, so you've just got this almost background noise because it's not super loud as far as clicky switches go. Yeah. The way I sometimes describe it, if you're a particularly fast typist, that it's kind of got this dot matrix printer a few rooms away sound. [ laughs]

I love that.

Now, you know, again, showing my age, I don't know how many... [ laughs] Some people are going to know what I'm talking about firsthand and some people aren't. [laughs]

Yeah. I mean, I had one, but, you know-

[laughs]

I mainly remember the perforated papers on the sides. I loved those.

Right. Yeah, me too. [laughs]

That was so cool to just kind of... It was like, it was, it was great.

[laughs] Oh.

I'd make long, long strips of those perforations.

[laughs]

It was great.

[laughs] Yeah.

And the paper size wasn't even standard on ours, anyway. It wasn't like A4 letter. It was just this weird size. I don't know. It was cool.

Yeah. I, that's... [laughs] I think mine probably was also an, an odd size. I don't... Yeah, I don't know.

Awesome. So I guess what we always say about clicky switches, right, and especially in the context of flow and stuff, I guess it's flow for the typist. [laughs]

Right.

They're going to be fairly disruptive to a-

Right.

a lot of people in the room, I think, right?

Yeah, yeah. Before buying a keyboard [laughs] with clicky switches or changing out your switches for something clicky, you might want to check. If you have an office mate or a housemate, you might want to check with them [laughs] and see what they think about typing noise. Let's see. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put the mic back down, uh, here and... So that's the Thick Gold.

Mm-hmm.[affirmative]. I wouldn't mind that. I don't know, but I like typing.

Right. In a way, I think... I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to describe this very well, but it's almost more like one continuous sound than the discrete tap, tap, tap of other clicky switches.

Yes.

Because the, because they're so close together, that it's almost more like a, kind of a white noise or kind of a static noise than, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

Yup. Yeah, totally, totally. You know, this reminds me of a Mac app I've seen a few weeks ago I think. It's an app that you can install on your Mac, and then it makes your keyboard click in your headphones.

Oh. [laughs] Uh-huh [affirmative].

So it turns your laptop keyboard into a clicky keyboard, and it's low latency enough that I think it's pretty convincing. But it's only for you. So it's a fun solution for that, I guess.

Right. That's interesting. That would be, I think that would be kind of an odd, like, kind of the cognitive dissonance-

Right.

where you've got this very flat, shallow Mac keyboard, you know, with the little chiclet keys that barely press down at all, and then click, click, click in your ears. [laughs]

Right. Like these massive thunks. I don't know. When I-

[laughs]

actually tried it and it wasn't bad, actually. It wasn't like big thunks, but yeah, if you use like the sound of like, you know, a big resonant, boy, that'll be, that'll be really weird, yeah.

[laughs] Yeah. But interesting, yeah. Uh, so if you like that sort of thing, then yeah. I think that one of these, one of the Kailh Gold switches might be right up your alley. The Gold for something a little louder and a little firmer, uh, the Thick Gold/Bronze for something a little gentler, but noisier, but not in a loudness sense, [laughs] if that makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I have to say that is not a distinction I had in my mind before you said it-

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

so, so that's a great summary. I think it's a really good way to look at these both.

Right. Yeah, I think we tend to use the term noisy to mean loud, but in this case noisiness and volume are kind of two different dimensions here. [laughs] Yeah. They're both fun switches for the typist. [laughs]

Yeah.

They're both Speed Switches, so that's a pro or con depending on your tastes.

And use case, I would say, too, right? Because-

Yeah.

Speed Switches were originally aimed, I think, at the gamers and like first person shooter type of scenarios where you have to really spam the keyboard sometimes and things like that.

Right.

I think, no?

Right. Yeah, I think so, too. I think that they've also kind of broken out of that mold and there are plenty of people who aren't gamers maybe at all, or only just casually or something, who still like these switches just for typing-

Oh, totally.

coding or typing or whatever, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you're a light touch typer, I think especially the Speed Switches may appeal.

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Yeah.

Cool. Thank you very much.

Sure. Thank you.

Talk to you soon.

Yep.