The hobby hive mind seems to be in regression.
Less flex cuts, less meme cuts, no foam, and 1.6mm PCBs seem to be coming back in designs.
I personally think this is great to see, as I’m still waiting for the day when keyboards
reflect and incite passion in the hobby and illustrate the magic of the art form that
they once were.
This is the orbit 65%.
A board that makes me feel just a little more optimistic about the future of the hobby.
The board comes with a nice custom carrying case.
First off we have small parts, like 70A tadpoles, extra screws and allen keys, a daughterboard,
and 50A tadpoles.
Next is a PC plate, aluminum plate, our hotswap PCB, a foam kit, including plate foam and
bottom PCB foam, and our bottom feet.
Lastly, in the lower compartment is the board itself, wrapped in a ton of plastic wrap.
Orbit is a tadpole mounted 65%.
We have a hotswap or solder 1.6mm PCB, with solder supporting stepped caps, split left
shift, 7U bottom row, split backspace, and ISO enter.
The hotswap PCB only supports stepped caps and ISO enter.
These both have daughterboards and support QMK and VIA.
As for plate options, full aluminum is included, and half aluminum, PC, FR4, and POM will also
be available as add-ons.
For colors, the top case can be configured in silver, black, e-white, lavender, plum,
or beige.
These can be configured with a copper, brass, mirror PVD, black PVD, white, or black bottom
case.
This is with the exception of the beige top, which can only come with a brown bottom case.
Lastly, full aluminum orbit configurations start at $349, brass bottom orbits start at
$399, and copper bottom orbits start at $439.
In this PCB are TX AP Stabs lubed with 205g0 and BDZ.
I’ll add on the aluminum plate, And in here go Invokeys Matcha Lattes.
These have hand-lubed stems from the factory.
Lastly, for the inner assembly, I’ll add on the 50A tadpoles.
These are the softer of the two tadpoles offered, and the default hardness that comes with the
board is a stiffer yellow 70A tadpole.
Now we can get to the case.
I’ll first install the daughterboard, And now we can connect the inner assembly,
Set the tadpoles in place, Close the case back up,
Install the feet, which cover up our screws, And install DCX Black on White.
Let’s take a listen.
The board is very loud, and a lot of that can be attributed to the Matcha Lattes being
long poles.
There’s just a tad of hollowness, which is to be expected with a foamless build.
Force break did clean up a bit of the more tonal hollowness sound nicely, but of course,
foam is really needed to fully get rid of it.
Switching to the harder yellow 70A tadpoles did make the sound profile a little bit tighter
and higher pitched, so that’s also an option in terms of sound customization.
But the overall pitch of all these configs is kinda in the mid-range.
And if I could make any change to this config, it would be swapping out the plate to carbon
fiber, as I feel that would help with the liveliness of the profile a bit.
Overall, I expected a pretty solid foamless sound, and Orbit was able to deliver.
This is obviously also helped by a full plate and a zero cut 1.6mm PCB.
So the Orbit is a great option if you don’t want to stuff your build full of foam to get
a lively sound or decent volume.
Because of the density of the silicon tadpoles and the config, there’s really no flex at
all.
You might have better luck with the polycarb plate, but this is definitely a board more
optimized for a quality sound profile rather than being flexible.
There’s a tiny bit of bounce with these softer white tadpoles, and virtually no noticeable
bounce while typing daily with the harder yellow ones.
The white tadpoles are 50A and yellow are 70A, and an even stiffer black 80A tadpole
will also be offered.
We can safely assume that this will also increase the pitch of the build compared to the other
two.
But overall, the goal of this build was to achieve a good foamless sound, and softness
came secondary.
The softer white tadpoles do provide that extra little bit of cushion that helps combat
the harshness of long poles on an alu plate, although to me, the mounting style itself
already does a good job of this with most tadpole hardnesses.
For reference, the higher the number, the stiffer the silicon.
The design feels very intentional.
The designer took inspiration from the Frog TKL and the HHKB series.
First off, we have this beautiful side profile curvature.
There’s a very slight angular cut on all sides of the board that helps accentuate the
curve and add dimension to the overall design.
Also contributing to this classiness are the uneven side and top/bottom bezels.
The edges have small chamfers.
There’s a nice sliver of the bottom case revealed at the back, and here is our centered
USBC port.
The bottom has our Machina engraving, and I personally think it was a good decision
to have the placement here as it allows the bottom case to show itself off.
The board is also screwless, as these geon-style friction-fit feet cover up the screw holes.
The bottom feet will match the bottom case color in production units, and mirror bottoms
will have gray feet instead of black.
As for the interior, aluminum bottom case versions have nice coated brass internal weights.
These form a star shape in the middle, which is some nice attention to detail that helps
push the Orbit theme.
These also help with honing the sound profile and eliminating unwanted noise.
This all comes together to make a very classy-looking board with enough attention to detail to still
stand out.
You might have seen earlier this weird streaking on the mirror bottom case.
This is only visible at certain light angles, although it still is disappointing at this
price point.
Besides that, for material quality, everything looks good, although the friction-fit feet
start to become pretty loose after a few disassemblies.
In an era where flex cuts and foam have dominated the market, the Orbit signals a refreshing
departure and a return to the fundamental principles of what made custom keyboards appealing
in the first place: classy design and quality sound without the need for extraneous mods.
However, the price is steep, and definitely not dismissable from a modern standpoint,
competing against many boards with incredible value.
So while the Orbit presents as a beautiful and acoustically soundboard, its worth and
value are ultimately up to your preference to decide.