This is my Topre collection. I’ve been a collector for years now and mainly collector Topre and Alps boards.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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I've been looking for a topre board but I cannot for the life of me justify the crazy price tag for an ANSI realforce. It doesn't help that I'm steadfast in my "only TKL" layout choice, but I've spent way too much money to find out that I just prefer TKL's. So despite trying a HHKB at a meetup I'll never own one because of the layout. I know that buying a realforce from Japan is an option, but ISO-style return is just bleh, I'm too used to hitting return with my pinky. Pretty much all of the boards I've seen on mercari and yahoo auctions JP are ISO-style return.
It just seems fun to mod something that isn't a MX platform, and I don't really open my alps switches unless I have to. But with topre you can just take it all apart and change the sliders and domes and such, so you could really dial in the board to exactly how you want it. Plus the good feeling of oneness with cup rubber crowd is definitely on the rise as more and more custom groupbuy boards have EC support.
I just wish the cost for an ANSI realforce was so high, otherwise topre would probably be my daily. But I know how it entitled it is to complain about prices when I have 2 alps custom keyboards.
Yeah, Topre is way too expensive. I love these boards, but they’re probably not worth it. Enjoy your Alps boards! What switches did you go with?
I've got a kage with NOS blues and a dolphin with SKCL green. Both did cost me a hell of a lot of money, but these 2 boards are sort of the culmination of what I like about custom keyboards and were a couple years in the making from when I had the idea. There was an orange alps board planned but I'm not the biggest fan of tactile switches. That's why I've been looking into topre, as tactile offerings from MX designs aren't great, and alps are either expensive as hell(brown alps) or have to be paper modded which when I did it really affected the feel of the switches.
Cup rubber seems to be the true end game for tactile switches, so I'll keep looking for a deal on a realforce.