Attention keyboard nerds: This website lets you hear the sound of 36 different mechanical keebs, switches, and more as you type
Are we all here? Excellent. I’ve gathered the keyboard nerd community today to show you The Listening Museum, a website that allows you to select from 36 different typing devices and switches, and, err, type on them. Well, you get to type in a box, anyway. But it plays the sounds of each keeb/switch in real time.
See, that was worth getting out of bed for, wasn’t it? The first keyboard on the list is the truly iconic IBM Model M, as is right and proper (via Techspot). After that comes a whole host of different keebs and switches, which may prove very useful if you’re looking to try out something new in the near future.
Each sound gets an onomatopoeic description, too. For the “vintage typewriter” model, it is as follows:
“Steel typebar slaps a rubber platen through an inked ribbon, inside a steel resonant frame, every strike is a mini-hammer hitting a drum. Carriage return ding is an actual bell. The sound is not comparable to any modern switch.”
Gosh, it’s almost poetry. It’s unclear if said description was actually typed on each example, but I’m imagining so as it’s more fun. Imagine typing this on an HHKB Pro Hybrid with Topre switches, for example:
“Capacitive sensing means no physical switch contact, the conical rubber dome absorbs almost all high-frequency energy before the POM slider bottoms on the dome collar, so what you hear is a low, damped thump.
“PBT domed keycaps + dense chassis reinforce that bass signature. No clicky leaf, no metal-on-metal: pure low-mid thock.”
Yes, you keyboard enthusiasts can be quite intense—and having tested quite a few for this very website, I’d like to count myself among you. Where is the clubhouse, exactly? I was sent to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of Birmingham, and I’m pretty sure the man on the door didn’t appreciate my use of the word “creamy”. Oh well.
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