First was the axe60.
A board that stunned with its intricacy from every angle.
Inspired by the Leviathan Axe from God of War, Axe60 featured a beautiful side profile
and badge.
But today, from the same mind, we have something drastically different.
This is the Aeroboard 70, a retro sci-fi-themed board that’s hiding something special under
the hood.
Let’s get it out of the box.
First up are our light gray gaskets.
These are 40A silicone, and come with options for mounting to either the plate or PCB, many
of which are entirely up to you.
We’ve also got our dark gray gaskets.
These are a stiffer 50A silicone and come with the same options.
In this area are also 3U stab wires.
In this middle section is an assembly guide, which is always appreciated,
And under it, a tightness adjustment tool, Metal screw bit storage, which is really cool,
And various allen keys.
Under this foam is our flex cut FR4 plate and some replacement parts,
And various foams, including plate foam, PE foam, and bottom PCB foam.
Here’s our flex cut hotswap PCB with some shims,
And a sheet of pre-cut tape mod.
According to the diagram, this is supposed to go below the bottom PCB foam, which I thought
was kinda interesting.
Of course, our board is last, including the bottom case foam and daughterboard.
The aeroboard 70 is a 65% with a macro column.
We have a hotswap flex-cut PCB that supports stepped caps and also this very interesting
split 3U spacebar option.
PCBs all have daughterboards and support VIA.
As for plates, we have FR4, as well as the option for PC or aluminum.
We have 5 standard edition colors - e beige, silver, black, plum, and two purples.
There’s a lot of other case colors and also different piece combinations in the interest
check post, so detailed info on color availability should be posted closer to the buy period.
Full alu cases with stainless steel PVD accents will run $475, and alu and brass cases with
stainless steel PVD accents will run $560, placing this board in the high-end category.
In the PCB are TX AP stabs with 205g0 and BDZ.
We’re going to add on the flex cut FR4 plate, And in here go pink hanami dangos.
These are factory-lubed linears with a very snappy feel.
With the inner assembly done, we can take a look at the specialized gasket mount.
You have the option to attach these either to the plate or PCB or really both, and we’re
going to go with the plate-mounted ones on all the eight points.
We’re also using the harder of the two stiffnesses included, which should help at least a little
with the sound profile considering all the cuts.
We’ll open up the case, using two different screw bits, which is weird,
Plug in the daughterboard, which is just a ribbon cable,
And we also need to install the case foam sheet for ESD protection, according to the
manual.
Now, we can seat the inner assembly, close the case,
And install DCX hyperfuse.
The sound profile is really unique, and I’m not sure if I like it or not.
It’s almost like a deep quiet pop, but not deep in the PE foam sense.
The mounting style is definitely influencing this profile a lot here.
I think some deep and loud switches would really work well in this board, like Epsilons.
The spacebar is very strong, although the alphas have some semblance of plastickyness.
This might just be the fault of the switches.
Keep in mind that the DCX sound profile is extremely similar to GMK.
The sound does end up being pretty dull, so I definitely would have liked to see a cutless
plate or PCB offering.
There’s also quite a bit of hollowness in the corners.
But the specialized gasket mounting opens up a lot of opportunities for testing, so
let’s also listen to a very different gasket configuration and compare it to before.
The first thing I noticed is that the spacebar sound kinda died, and this is probably because
there’s no longer a gasket supporting the area.
Overall, the sound is less deep, but also just much more lame.
The good thing is this gasket config killed the kind of “thunky” low end, but also
made the sound more plasticky.
Let’s try taping up the PCB cuts and seeing if it helps.
Taping the cuts really does help bring the sound back to par, especially in terms of
the volume, but it still sounds pretty lame.
The tape really only supported the high end, and as a result, the lower sound frequencies
are kinda drowned out.
And unfortunately, the corner hollowness is still here.
So while I can’t pinpoint how this board's gasket configs compare to other kinds of gaskets
in terms of sound profile, I can pretty confidently say that it’s not going to help overcome
the dullness created by using a heavily cut plate and PCB.
Because the case foam takes up most of the empty case space, there’s not as much flex
as other boards with the same amount of cuts in the PCB and plate, and very little bounce.
However, the board still has the weird damping feeling you get when typing on many boards
stuffed full of foam.
I wish a thinner ESD sheet was included so I could take full advantage of the flexible
inner assembly, and also just to have more freedom with the sound profile.
But the corner hollowness doesn’t exactly give me confidence that a fully foamless build
won’t come with sound flaws.
With the different gasket config, there’s definitely more noticeable flex and bounce,
especially in the center of the alphas.
The flex increased more than the bounce, and getting more bounce would require removing
the case foam, which can’t be happening any time soon.
The design is incredibly striking.
On the top are large bezels with the sides having a sort of cherry lip.
The back piece is also visible from the top, which has this grill design that almost reminds
me of the Rama thermal.
And unlike many boards, this one actually has a well-developed front design, which continues
this grill theme.
The side reveals both the rear and bottom case pieces, while also helping add a little
bit of a triangular silhouette to the board.
The back has these large accent tempered glass pieces, which shine through RGB. and it’s
a little hard to see, but this USB port is part of the bottom piece.
Lastly, the bottom is a little bit anticlimactic, considering the rest of the board, with just
a logo badge in the center.
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I’m not really one for these accent splitters.
I think this black one works the best because it kinda looks like a screen, but generally,
these look kinda out of place, especially when there are no other accents visible from
the top.
This board implements it pretty well because the top grill accent draws some attention
away.
While the board explicitly draws motifs from striking shapes in retro sci-fi design, I
think the Angry Miao similarity is pretty evident - the structuring of the side profile,
rear accenting, and most importantly, interior innovation.
What Smit6y has done is completely rethought the approach to gasket mount; combining the
flexibility of emerging methods of hardness modification and variable attachment points.
What caught my eye with this mount is how much it actually contacts the bottom case.
The gaskets pretty much sit inside the bottom case, and this might be contributing to the
dampening of the sound.
But I really do wonder what kind of experimentation led to the development of this shape, and
what would happen to the sound if they were smaller like Qwertykeys’ dumbbells, or mounted
shallower like normal poron gaskets.
For the price of the board, I’d at least expect a carrying case.
But the attention to detail is great.
The RGB is diffused well, the internal design is very streamlined, and the external design
is very nuanced and detailed.
This is clearly a board much more focused on aesthetics rather than sound profile, and
I feel many of the boards today really lean towards one or the other instead of trying
to tackle both.
If the specialized gasket mount was intended to help with sound as well as feel customizability,
then I feel like most of the headroom in terms of sound is being limited by only offering
a flex-cut PCB.
So while the Aeroboard may be out of some budgets, its unique nature serves as a testament
to the results of a commitment to high-quality design.