Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
Edit: Don't get me wrong, Melissa and Bob had always been very friendly and helpfull, i had a problem, sent a mail speaking in a friendly reasonable manner, got an answer, problems solved. But spending a couple of hundred dollars at a MD drop, waiting for months, flaws, waiting for months again to finally being able to use the purchased product it's meant to be isn't very pleasing.
A mate of mine had participated in Granite once, spend a LOT of money, and had to wait more then a year till he finally has gotten a reasonable product.
Wait times can be a problem, especially considering the money some people spend on sets. But like she mentioned, they have to cater to the large industrial orders first, which makes sense. Going through a third party like MD can also make it take a bit longer. Good part of that is that when you go through MD or PMK directly, getting money back or eventually getting a replacement is pretty much hassle free and not an issue.
To top it all off: Delays.
I don't know whether """enthusiasts""" still realise this, but people are paying A LOT of money for these sets. An international buyer can easily get above 200€ (not $, €). Seeing people getting complete trainwrecks like these https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8imjk9lbt72i6wb/AAAawcyLG0A4cMCCCf00YVRZa?dl=0 or these https://www.massdrop.com/buy/granite-keycap-set/talk makes me beyond sad. But what angers me, are people talking these problems down. No, the flaw-rate of SP isn't "quite low". These mistakes aren't "silly" and "little". These issues are major and most importantly KNOWN. Them being nice people doesn't change the fact that they are selling products with major problems.
The mere fact that people think it is an "honor" that the people at SP are willing to take our money, deliver late and deliver bad, shows exactly what's wrong with this community. For some reason you think that it's really nice from SP/GMK, or even Gateron/Zeal to offer their products to you. But guess what, they're in it for the money - and there is nothing wrong with that. But people coming actively to their defence, although it's obvious that there are problems? That really baffles me. No - it infuriates me. Are you people really willing to buy the scraps? Are you really willing to buy (and more importantly: market them to new members of the community, who don't know better) blatantly faulty products? For what reason? So they bestow you the honor of working with you?
The sheepish ways of this community deeply sicken me. These people (not just SP, all of them) charge top-dollar for their products, so you should have top-expectations as well. Of course mistakes can happen. A completely crooked RGB-Addon can happen once or twice in all these years of groupbuys. But it happens every (PBT) groupbuy. In every kit. It's not a "silly mistake".
I don't pay much attention to the ABS-GBs since I don't think their pricing is competitive in any way. But I didn't see, nor hear from that many faulty products in those product lines, so that's a plus I guess.
I could go on with my rant, but I'll just end here.
So with regards to SP, I still think they have a low fault rate overall, but sure, they definitely have some issues. And some drops do seem to be far worse than others (mainly their PBT as you mentioned), why that is, I'm not sure. The last Granite drop (that I didn't get in on) seemed to have more issues than others for example.
Delays happen. Period. I've been buying group buys for years and years and nothing in this community (worth having) comes quickly. Want an awesome 7bit set? Gonna wait 2+ years for it. Want a cool custom board (say the Mira that has been in progress for 2+ years)? Going to wait for it. For those of us that have been around a while most of these MD buys seem to take no time at all compared to many other buys that are run on the forums by community members (which understandably take much longer). This is not a hobby for people that want instant gratification.
It IS quite a pleasure to work with them. That is coming from someone who HAS worked with them, lots. The only sets I can truly stand beside are the ones I design or have been a part of. When issues arose on a cap on one of my buys I found the problem before anyone else did, notified the community/MD/SP of the issue, and they very quickly managed to have replacements at the doorsteps of those needing it within 3 weeks of the issue being found. I'm making my own judgements of working with them based on my own experiences. I know exactly how my caps should look, I know my .svg files were aligned from the start, and I know what the finished product should look like. And they have delivered exactly what I expected.
I think the biggest issue they have is simply the fact that our "small community buys" have gotten rather large. A mistake is not as easy to fix as they used to be as now 1000's of replacements need to be made rather than 100's. Obviously this leads to delays when things happen. Like Melissa mentioned, they mainly do industrial orders, and we are just a tiny part of what they do.
I don't see anything sheepish from what you mentioned. This is an enthusiast community. In any enthusiast driven community prices are higher because things aren't mass produced. Things take time to happen and create and produce. Issues are more common on products when compared to other mass produced products due to the custom nature of them. We know the risks when joining buys. And while blindly defending something as being perfect that isn't is an issue, that isn't what I see around the community most of the time. Even knowing there could be issues, most of us still are happy to support a maker/join a buy/etc. because we like supporting the community as a whole.
Mistakes can be made and it sucks, really. A scratch in a keycap, a crooked RGB-kit. Shit happens. But every single PBT DSA set had these issues. This is not a mistake. This is a faulty product. Just like a certain Gateron switch with too much keywobble and 78g Springs which are actually closer to 70g. There's no sugarcoating that. PBT DSA is a catastrophe in regards of quality and since it still gets shipped it either fulfills their quality expectations (which would be concerning), or their quality control is lacking (which would be a little less concerning, but for the money it's still an outrage).
I don't think they have a low fault rate. In regards to whom? GMK? Yes they had/have their issues, especially with TA, but they never sold an entire faulty product line Gateron? Yes they have issues. No doubt about it. Colour swirls, breaking stems, maybe other stuff. But at least they are cheaper and pretty thick. BSP? Because of the Banana-Shift? Some Chinese cheap stuff? They cost a fraction of a SP set. Yet I still never had warped keys like on a DSA-set. Also I never had a hairline crack like on my G20s. Dyesubbing and font are mostly worse though and texture isn't always nice.
Are you honestly comparing groupbuys from Signature Plastics, an internationally known player, for whom we are just "a tiny part of what they do", to those of some dude trying to make his vision real, maybe with the help of some friends? There is no excuse for an industrial player to have such delays (how long was it for the last Granite run? Nearly half a year iirc, could be wrong though), especially not when the end product is faulty (the RGB-Mods). If you want to have a look at a company using a delay to its customers satisfaction, have a look at JTK. That GB took over half a year longer than planned now, since JTK changed the molds to get rid of some imperfections. Delays don't just happen. I don't know where you're from, but an industial player that has delays of over half a year won't be an industrial player for long. Do you really think that Wyse had to wait half a year longer for their keycaps once? I doubt that. Because then Wyse keyboards most likely wouldn't use DCS keycaps. Now of course Wyse was a bigger player than a community groupbuy, no doubt about that and most likely larger orders enjoy a higher priority. But that's not an excuse for all that's going wrong with SP groupbuys lately. Not in the slightest. They want our money, that's why they are offering their service to us. And that's okay. What's not okay is to want our money and offering us a worse service than elsewhere and skimping out on the QC. I really don't know what's up with people to think that delays from an industrial player are acceptable. Yes, they can happen. Sometimes. But not everytime. It's nearly "planned economy"-esque, really. Place your order now, get your Trabant whenever. It's not like there's any competition.
Frankly, I don't give a shit how it is to work with them because that's not at issue here. They can be the nicest people you've ever met for all I care. A LOT of their products get shipped to the customer in a faulty state and other people say that those are some "silly mistakes". That's the issue. It really grinds my gears how anybody could excuse that behaviour. Part of the community even encourages it, by makeing completely false statements about the keysets in the discussion. One of my favourites is "thick PBT".
Also not everybody can get replacements without a lot of trouble. Not everybody lives in the US. It can be a lot of work and time for European buyers, which would be avoidable by a minimum of QC.
So what is it now, are our buys very small in comparison to SPs regular workload, or are they getting too large for them to handle? I don't think you can have it both ways.
And regarding your last paragraph, again. SP is not a GB leader. SP is a business. A business gets a deadline and a business delivers on said deadline. If we aren't worthy of being SPs customers then please, stop doing business with us. There are other companies right around the corner because unlike your claim, the keyboard community isn't that much of a niche enthusiast market anymore. Devlin and JTK are around the corner, afaik. DT is still in contact with some chinese company regarding SA PBT Dyesubs.
You honestly don't see why I would call somebody (not necessarily you, but every single person in the community being okay with this) sheepish for being okay with getting faulty products, telling other people who are angry about getting said products that it's just a "silly mistake" (or similar) and getting another set of said product once it launches, although the problems haven't been fixed? Because I couldn't think of a better example.
You should make your own! Then they could be perfect. 🤗
No, don't make your own, just don't buy faulty products, especially when the manufacturer knows they're faulty, since it has been that way for years and they have to send hundreds of replacement sets after every Granite GB.
Yes, currently they have a monopoly on DSA/SA and that really sucks, but Devlin is right around the corner and I'm sure the chinese are cooking something as well. If you need your keycaps now, then go ahead and buy them, I can't and don't want to stop you. but at least stop belittleing the problems. There are problems, there's no question about it, I've named several so far and I'm sure I've missed some. Ignoring these problems by not asking about this very important question in an interview and later even calling this stuff 'little mistakes' is just bad style. It's like you people don't even care if you get faulty products, as long as somebody is willing to work with you, you aren't asking any questions. However, that's not a solution to these problems and if you stopped shoving your money down their throats and at least take these problems seriously, warned newcomers and actually ask questions about it, maybe then it wouldn't have taken years of flat out faulty products being shipped. Or maybe not, but at least you wouldn't have been so stupidly sheepish about the issue in that case. At the moment, when you buy SP, you're buying low quality at high prices and it's time people actually realised that and start asking some questions. If you really think you can summarize this with 'lol, make your own' you're a moron who deserves be treated the way SP treats its customers. Personally I dislike being treated this way, but to each their own I guess.