Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2014 Keyboard

This is a decent mechanical keyboard. i actually did extensive research before settling on getting the blackwidow ultimate. other keyboard i was contemplating included DAS Professional (the lack of LED killed it for me), and Corsair Vengeance K70/95 (infamous LED dying problems killed it for me). after going to the local frys electronic store, the first unit i picked up turned out to be defective. Razer's quality has been slipping in recent years. a few razer products i've owned in recent years have also ran into quality issues, the uber expensive Ouroboros for example. but i couldn't believe that once again another razer product i purchased was defective, as it happened, the left "shift" key would not register. i decided to return the unit, and on top of that, the razer MX Blue wanna-be was just too loud for me. i went back to the store to try the Stealth model, and decided i just did not like the MX Brown feedback, nor the MX Red in the Corsair. so i returned the defective unit and got a refund. after another two weeks of countless research, i was going to buy the new Corsair RGB keyboard, which supposedly fixes all the infamous dead LED problems, but decided the MSRP was going to be too much to swallow. so i decided to give the blackwidow ultimate another shot since Amazon had it on labor day sale, but this time i ordered a bunch of rubber o-rings with it hoping it'll do something about the noise. so with the labor day price drop, together with my Amex accumulated points. it came out to be a good deal. the O-ring (blue) mod really did a lot to help reduce the noise, and it sure still maintain the feedback of the clicky MX blues. it's no longer obnoxiously loud in the house, as i am typing right now, it's just loud, not obnoxiously loud. one thing you need to watch out for, which i haven't seen any reviews mentioned this. if you decided to do the o-ring mod, be careful when lifting up "enter" or "space" keys, or any larger keys. Instead of using multiple mechanical switches to hold the larger keys, Razer op'ed for a single mechnical switch with steel wires and plastic hold-down clips. so if you pull those large keys up too hard, you can pull the entire plastic clip out of the PCB. you have to gently pull those larger keys up, and carefully yank the steel wire horizontally away from the two plastic clips off the pcb. do yourself a favor, get a key puller. it's not expensive, and you'll thank yourself later. i reduced the product one star due to the general poor quality control (it's apparent across all the reviews at this point), and the fact that you can only get it in green. This one color fits all approach is not welcomed in my book. i personally would prefer different LED options for something that costs well over $150 after tax. Not everyone likes green Razer. overall, for the MSRP, i wouldn't say it's a good deal, consider the poor quality control in general, and the lack of LED option. but there isn't that many mechnical keyboard counter parts at the time of this writing. the closest competition are either DAS, which comes without LED, or Corsair, which has the infamous dead LED problem (google). outside of those three choices currently, you're left with ugly bulky designs. i wonder what would happen if one day an Apple designer decided to come up with a nice mechanical keyboard to replace all their Chiclets. i think hell will break loose. sometimes i hate apple for hogging all the good industrial designers. EDIT: i just want to add that i ordered a Blackwidow Tournament Edition for work. and surprisingly, the Tournament edition has a slightly different audible feedback. The Tournament edition is not as loud as the Ultimate. it's a bit odd, i can only guess that due to the LED implementation, perhaps the Tournament edition uses a completely different PCB making it not as loud. i can actually use the Tournament edition at work without the rubber o-ring upgrade. it's sounds just right. the general switch feedback still feels the same as the Ultimate. i thought this might be helpful for some. EDIT 10/4/2014 I thought i'd update that the Blackwidow Tournament i have in my office (which is seeing heavy use on a daily basis) started malfunctioning. the "O" key sometimes would register twice, or not register at all. the problem started becoming more frequent. it's only about a month into owning the Blackwidow Tournament and i am pretty disappointed. it reinforces the notion that owning a razer product is much like buying the lottery. you'll either hit a DOA, or they might work, or they might start dying on you relatively soon. taking one star off the rating. hopefully the store i bought it from will let me do an exchange consider it's only been a month.