In pursuit of 'THOCK'

My love for mechanical keyboards started when I first purchased the Redragon Kumara K552. This was the most recommended beginner mechanical keyboard by the community in reddit. It had red switches and the switches are hot swappable. Note: Red switches mean less clicky sound. It was amazing to see how much of the keyboard can be taken apart and switched. Over time, I've been trying out different mods on the keyboard, chasing that 'THOCK'. What is 'THOCK'? One might ask. ChatGPT defines it as:

"THOCK refers to a deep and satisfying sound produced when typing on a well-tuned keyboard."

The point of a mechanical keyboard is not to get a productivity boost, it is to get a pure acoustic pleasure. I started with simple mods like putting some tape or foam inside the keycap to deepen the sound. Then I bought some switch lube and dielectric grease. Dielectric grease is for the stabilizers of the longer keys (Shift, Spacebar, Enter etc.). Taking these apart made me admire the mechanics of it. It is usually these keys that need a lot of work to get the sound right.

After working on the longer keys, I moved to the small ones. So the idea is to take apart each switch and strip its casing to apply lube to the spring. Might sound easy on paper, but doing it for the 128 keys was a tedious task.

So, I just did it for the keys that are mostly used! This helped with clearing out some noises. After some months, the need for THOCK hit me again. So I decided to purchase a different set of switches. My keyboard does not support all type of switches, the best one I found was Akko V3 Matcha Green. These were pre-lubed and had a decent sound. When the switches arrived, I realized that the pins were slightly bigger than the sockets. This meant more work, I filed the pins using sandpaper to make them fit.

THOCK THOCK! My urge for more THOCK came knocking. This time, I was lazy to do more mods. So I just checked online and found Aula F75 to be the most popular at the time. I didn't want to invest in a Keychron just yet. This one was a real beauty, it made my entire setup pop! And it delivered the perfect THOCKs. Just like the ones you hear in youtube.

It's like those childhood days when you buy a fancy pen, all you want to do is write.