Keygeek Mirror Lake: Review by Vere

Volume	Extremely high volume for a long-pole, similar to Keygeek's Y1X. It has a strong volume, but sharper sound profile.
Pitch	High pitched, definitely higher pitched than the Y1X due to the UPE stem with PBT + Fiberglass bottom.
Sound Profile	Bright and somewhat sharp sound, slightly thinner than the other Keygeeks due to the addition of UPE. The fiberglass bottom also increases the overall sharpness of the sound. Quite literally a glassy sound profile, perhaps like tapping on the surface of a frozen lake?
Stock	Slightly inconsistent lubricant when compared to the Y1X and Y3, there are minor shortcomings in the pre-lube as well as some batches missing lube entirely. Otherwise there is no noticeable leaf tick or spring ping, smoothness is also solid and these switches have minimal wobble except for the inconsistent batches.
Design	Excellent thematic design which matches the sound profile together with the visual design and name of the switch. Utilizing a softer stem with a stronger and firmer bottom housing isn't new, but it takes effort to pull off.
Other	A budget option that utilizes a PBT + Fiberglass bottom housing.

 

Stock Experience:

The Keygeek Mirror Lakes come with a thick grease which resembles Krytox 205g on the switch leaf, with thinner oils over the stem in very minimal amounts. The springs also have coatings of grease over them.

 (Oil streaks over main contact points)

The stock experience is mostly consistent and the switches do not exhibit much transient sound if they are pre-lubed as intended, the wobble is also well contained despite the UPE stem.

 (Plenty of lube over the leaf)

Here's the only issue with the stock experience: batch inconsistency.

I received reports of scratchy Mirror Lakes and noticed that a few of mine were drastically noisier than others when it came to leaf tick or spring ping. In my batch of 90 switches, around 7 were entirely dry with no trace of lubricant whatsoever. 

After opening them up, I noticed that there was literally no lubricant to be found, this is hard to mistake as the leaf and spring had no visible traces when the lubed versions have visible amounts of lube globules.

 (As dry as can be)

(Untouched by any droplets of lubricant)

Is this a major issue? Technically yes, after all when they are advertised as being factory lubed, you would want to receive lubed switches. 

However, in my opinion this is better than over-lubed switches since you can manually adjust the total amount of lubricant you would like to use. On top of this, the Keygeek lubrication process is extremely minimal, with barely any lube on the stem and mostly lube on the leaf and spring.

Would I re-lube them? Only if you want to alter the sound, for the ones that I cherry-picked and used stock, I felt that there was no need to add more lube unless you wanted to deepen the sound profile.

 

Spiritual Successor:

Both visually and composition-wise, I immediately thought of the Keygeek Avalons which released last year and were unfortunately plagued with a lot of QC issues. 

(We were so close to greatness)

However, those switches still sounded and felt amazing, being super smooth and having an extremely powerful sound profile because of the PBT bottom housing.

The only differences are that the Avalon used a proprietary U3 stem and proprietary PBT bottom, with a POK top.

They did have a 3.8mm version which matches the Mirror Lakes.

They unfortunately failed when it came to balancing the stem firmness, as some of my Avalon stems were deformed and inconsistent.

I believe they opted for a traditional UPE stem to retain firmness and a R1(Polycarbonate base) top housing to create a more glassy sound profile overall. The Avalons were much deeper and marble-y due to the POK top and modified UPE stem.

Like I mentioned before, Keygeek seems to take every release as an opportunity to improve their past mistakes despite the setbacks.

 

R1 Top Housing:

The R1 top housing is made through a polycarbonate base according to Keygeek. (Used in the Muguet Rose)

(A weird release in my opinion)

It has been altered to become smoother by utilizing other materials, since Polycarbonate isn't as smooth as some of the other plastic options we have at the moment. The main benefit of using Polycarbonate as the top housing is the slightly firm sound that you can hear from the return in the top-out sound.

These Mirror Lakes definitely have a crisp bottom-out, but the top-out sound is still noticeable due to this choice which helps accentuate it in my opinion. It helps generate that glassy and ice-like sound profile.

Plus it is easier to utilize a transparent housing when using polycarbonate, I think this is mostly for the visual design aspect.

 

UPE Stem and inconsistency:

With regards to the UPE stem, I unfortunately don't have much to say besides a certain flaw with the consistency of the stems.

As some people have reported, their switches may have a certain plasticky noise in some of them, which I found is caused by some stems being slightly thinner on the edges which introduces more horizontal wobble.

This gap creates the possibility for the stem to hit the top housing at an angle which creates a weird plasticky sound before you even bottom-out. This sound can also appear on the return when it hits off-center. I tested this by actuating the switches in hand, but not bottoming-out on them. The faulty switches also have noticeably worse horizontal wobble than the good ones.

(No gap, stem is quite tight)

(Gap on horizontal edges which adds a lot of wobble)

Around 10 in my batch of 90 had this issue, this is unfortunately common when it comes to UHMWPE based materials, but it is definitely a huge improvement over the Keygeek Avalons. It was slightly remedied by applying some lubricant to the top housing where the sliders would impact the top on the return. I would recommend doing this if you can hear a very odd top-out sound compared to the rest of your batch.

 

Overall Design:

So, let's break down the overall design here with the Mirror Lakes.

First off, the composition is utilizing a soft stem material with firmer housing materials. We can either expect a balanced or high-pitched sound profile to result from this.

The material being UPE means that we are likely to hear a high-pitched but thin sound profile, but when paired with a PBT bottom, it results in an amplified sound profile which I mentioned was glass-like earlier.

The R1 top housing isn't exactly meant to mute the top-out sound like some nylons, but it is meant to solidify the sound profile in the top-out and keep things bright on both ends of the switch.

When paired together with the lighter spring and moderate long-pole travel, we can get a bright, noisy (in a good way), and smooth switch that performs similarly to some of HMX's switches that use a similar composition like the Deep Navy for example.

The Keygeek Avalons attempted to create a slightly different version that was more on the balanced and deeper end, but they struggled with the softness of the U3 stem and they didn't use their current slim leaf spring, which led to QC issues in wobble, feel, and transient noise.

There are flaws with this switch however, one of them being minor and fixable, but the other one being a bit detrimental to the future of this switch if they do not work on improving it.

Missing pre-lube can be solved by lubing the switches yourself to your own liking, but with the inconsistency of the stem, it isn't easy to solve that issue.

However as mentioned, around 10 were affected in my batch of 90, which is thankfully not a deal-breaker as I generally stick to boards smaller than a TKL.  However if you were to require 90 for a full build, you may either want to order extras or simply avoid this switch until they confirm adjustments in the future.

All in all, I think they produced a nice long-pole in line with their targeted goal, and it even matches the overall theme of the switch. 

 

Smoothness: Phenomenal

By utilizing a UPE stem and PBT bottom housing, we already have some fairly smooth materials that barely need any lubricant to reach peak smoothness.

The only concern is that the un-lubed switches may be scratchy since you will need to apply some lubricant yourself.

Overall nothing much to say here as the switch is smooth out of the box.

 

Sound Profile:

These switches are glassy and loud with a crisp bottom-out. Rather than a consolidated sound, it's a bit noisy overall.

As mentioned above, the PBT Fiberglass bottom housing definitely amplifies the strength of the sound by a considerable amount.

Without the PBT bottom housing, the base composition would have resulted in a thin and slightly shallow clack.

With the combination of UPE stem on a firmer and stiffer bottom housing, a longer travel distance, lighter spring weight, as well as a firmer top housing, we have a noisy switch that makes plenty of sound on both bottom-out and top-out.

The reason why I compare this switch to a glassy sound is due to the slight thinness that results from the UPE.

Thin or muted sounds refer to the depth of sound, not just how loud or quiet it is. For example, UHMWPE usually makes people think of a deeper sound but its mostly due to when certain compositions result in a shallower and less powerful sound profile. Especially back in the day, most of the early UHMWPE experiments resulted in a bland and mellow sound profile which would make you think its deeper, but its just "muted".

UPE these days is often made with more stability in mind to be used for switches, being slightly firmer and allowing them to retain their shape, this trade-off actually makes them lean towards the high-pitch with their firmness.

If we look at the Gateron Ink material, it is much deeper and has a decent volume, but overall it sounds murky and muted. People compare it to a sticky sound profile.

If we take LY for comparison, it does generate some "deeper" notes, but a lot of LY based switches have that thin and high-pitched clack which sounds glass-like.

The HMX Blue Topaz is a perfect example of this. Despite having so many "soft" materials, it has a thin sound profile that definitely leans towards the higher pitch.

 

 (Both have thin and high pitched sounds with a "soft" stem)

Crisp refers to having a solid bottom out that is clear and is easy to hear, doesn't necessarily mean loud and bright.

Glassy refers to having a slightly thin and shrill profile, usually from a high-pitched sound, but not exactly sounding full.

Noisy refers to having multiple facets of sound in the profile, not in a bad way, but the switch can have an audible top-out, scratch, or something else which adds character to the sound.

When I compare this to the Y1X and Y3, it is definitely higher pitched but thinner. The Y1X is just a heavy hitter in the sound department and stands absolute, meanwhile the Y3 is more balanced, marble-y, and soft-spoken. This switch will definitely resonate more with those who enjoy HMX's thinner and bright sound profiles.

 

 

 

Direct Comparisons to other linears:

HMX Deep Navy (P3/P3/LY Stem) 3.6mm Travel

• These switches share a similar sound profile and composition design.
• The Mirror Lake is louder.
• The Mirror Lake has a slightly better stock form (No leaf tick)
• The Deep Navy has a slightly higher pitch.
• The Mirror Lake has slightly more horizontal wobble.
• They share similar smoothness stock.
• The Deep Navy is slightly thinner in sound.
• The Mirror Lake has a slightly firmer bottom-out.

SWK Jieum V2 (Nylon/Nylon/POM Stem) 3.5mm Travel

• These share almost no similar traits besides sound.
• The Mirror Lake is slightly louder.
• They share similar stock forms.
• They share similar pitch.
• The Mirror Lake has slightly more horizontal wobble.
• The Mirror Lake is slightly smoother stock.
• The Jieum v2 is slightly thinner in sound.
• The Mirror Lake has a firmer bottom-out.

Keygeek Y1X (PA66/PBT+GF30/Y1 Stem) 3.6mm Travel

• These switches share a similar composition and the same manufacturer.
• The Y1X is slightly louder.
• The Y1X has a slightly better stock form. (No inconsistency)
• The Mirror Lake is slightly higher pitched.
• The Mirror Lake has slightly more horizontal wobble.
• They share similar smoothness stock.
• The Mirror Lake is slightly thinner in sound.
• The Mirror Lake has a slightly firmer bottom-out.

 

Flaws:

Unfortunately Geek Squad, I need to expose the truth, this switch has two issues, and while one is minor, the other may need some extra work to fix.

In my batch of 90, around 7 were perfectly dry, and around 10 had inconsistency in the stem. This means that 17 switches were affected in some way or form by some QC issues.

When you look at the big picture, that means that out of 900 switches, a grand total of 170 could be negatively affected, and not everyone would appreciate encountering those kinds of issues in their product.

Of course it could be a rare case, but the reports I've read and noticed from others do not betray the fact that it isn't impossible nor is it uncommon.

The un-lubed switches can just be re-lubed by the user, but the stems being thinner and creating a gap in the top housing is something that will directly affect the sound and type-feel during use. Lubing will fix up the sound, but the slight wobble is not something fixable in hand.

Whether or not this is a deal breaker for you is up to your own discretion, personally I just cherry-picked my switches and just used them anyway in a 60% board. 

I have already talked to Dashan about this and he will relay the feedback to Keygeek, so they may be able to correct this issue in future releases. (And they have a good track record)

 

PERSONAL BUILD RECOMMENDATIONS: (PREFERENCE/OPINION BASED)

I tested these switches on a Polypropylene build with no foam to bring out the most of the sound profile.

It was bright, noisy, and definitely gave off a crisp and glassy sound that wasn't too piercingly sharp. I think that you can probably get the best mileage out of plates that resonate well with noisier switches.

I recommend anything along the lines of Aluminum, Carbon Fiber, FR4, and Polypropylene. It should perform excellently regardless of mounting style as well.

The raw sound is unfiltered and decently full, it isn't fully consolidated but has a lot of character, I wouldn't recommend using foam here as it might just kill off a lot of the sound.

 

CLOSING SUMMARY:

The most recent release which came before the Keygeek Y1X and Y3, it was a huge improvement over past releases but doesn't exactly come with the same quality as the newest ones.

For $0.35 per switch, the Mirror Lakes offer us a bright and glass-like performance that generates plenty of noise whilst being smooth and comfortable to use.

It hits as hard as the other Keygeek releases and reminds you of HMX's thinner and sharper releases but with a different flavor. Its overall design matches together with the theme and sound profile as well. Cold, crisp, and high-pitched with a thinner sound that resembles the tapping of glass or icicles.

Though it comes with some issues of its own, Keygeek has shown us with the Y3 and Y1X that they were able to improve their work after they made the Mirror Lakes.

If you're interested in another manufacturer that offers a brighter and arguably stronger sound profile than most competitors, the Keygeek Mirror Lake offers a switch that not only produces the smoothness of gliding over a frozen landscape, but also the elegant sound of a glass-like resonance. However, if you're unafraid of testing the waters yourself, be wary of the possible flaws that lie beneath the icy surface.

 

FINAL SCORING: 8.6/10