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Comment by darkstar999 | Hacker News Reader

How loud are these things? Would I annoy my open floorplan office mates?

Browns are a bit quieter, but still quite clacky when you bottom the keys out. You can reduce that quite a bit using o-ring dampeners under every keycap.

You might also look at a Matias Quiet Pro - they use custom switches based off old Alps designs (much more satisfying than Cherries, imo) and are a fair bit quieter out of the box: http://matias.ca/quietpro/

In a previous startup, I worked in an "open office" room with 4 other developers. Two of us used cherry MX brown key switches, and no-one seemed to mind.

Blues are a different story. Personally, I can't even stand hearing myself type with blues, let alone someone else. If someone had the balls to bring one of those into an open office I would probably need noise cancelling headphones to work in the same space.

As others have mentioned, the noise from brown mechanical switches is from the plastic bottoming out and not the switches themselves. Therefore, some keyboards are de-facto louder than others.

My Das, for instance, is definitely more audible than my backlit gaming Max keyboard. Both use the same brown key switches, but the plastic & keyboard construction is different resulting in a more muted typing experience with the latter.

I work in an open office and my coworkers asked me to take my mechanical home (brown switches). I think it all depends on how tolerant your coworkers are. Edit: if you're careful not to bottom out, then it isn't so bad. O-rings can help dampen the sound otherwise.

Your coworkers must be really sensitive (or mine are really tolerant). I've used brown switches in a Filco Majestouch for over a year, never had any complaints. I don't bottom out the keys, but there's a noticeable clack when the keys come back up to full extension.

IOW, I don't think brown keys are unreasonable for shared work environments; they're not much louder than a standard Dell rubber-domed KB.

The blue switches in my DasKeyboard at home however... I think I'll have to upgrade just to get something a bit quieter.

Having used Das 2 Ultimate [MX brown?] on a trading floor for last 2 years, i can say that yes, it is LOUD. but not as loud as ambient noise. The people on the phone will hear you type though, even through a good Plantronics headset

The brown switches are pretty nice. You don't hear the switches, but you do hear the clatter of the plastic at that point. I am in an open office plan, and it isn't terribly louder than a normal keyboard.

You can listen to them under the "Cherry MX Switches" section. Blues yes, browns maybe. I've found that putting a tiny towel under my older Das Keyboard makes a huge difference in noise.

Yes.

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