When it comes to keyboards, colour me a comparative philistine. I just don't get the whole mechanical-switch, wobbly-key thing. They're all awful. Which, in a roundabout, contrarian kind of way, makes me just about perfect to wax sceptical on the subject of the Norbauer & Co Seneca: First Edition, a keyboard that's listed for up to $8,090 and is apparently inspired by the eponymous Stoic philosopher of ancient Roman fame.
Yeah, an eight grand keyboard with a praise-poverty sales pitch. More on the metaphysical, you might say epistemological, problems the Seneca association poses in a moment.
The base price actually comes in at a piffling $3,600, but at the very least, you'd surely add the optional riser, a piece of CNC-machined wood that's yours for a mere $290 and adds three degrees of pitch. Cheap at twice the price.
But how, exactly, does Norbauer & Co. contrive to offer such a pecunious PC peripheral? It's claimed to contain 682 custom parts. But let's start with the main chassis, an aluminium housing finished in "plasma" ceramic.
That involves "an oxidation process that uses intense heat and pressure generated by a storm of rapid high-energy micro-arcs, which forms an advanced ceramic coating on the substrate. The result is a smooth matte finish of extraordinary durability and cosmetic uniformity."
Then there are the switches. Norbauer proudly eschews the usual Cherry MX-style items in favour of an inordinately expensive-sounding in-house design. We're talking bespoke elastomeric capacitive domes with a free-sliding linear bearing which flattens a helical coil against a sensor pad.
Norbauer reckons this, "creates a characteristic and satisfying sound—a deep and quiet acoustic profile sometimes described as a 'thock.'" The switches have also been engineered with acute attention to any "unwelcome sense of looseness or wobble."
In order to tighten up any play and "achieve infinitesimally small gaps between parts," Norbauer manufactures its components to the "very challenging" International Tolerance Grade 10 standard and verifies part dimensions with an independent third-party inspection firm using highly accurate 3D computed tomography (CT) scans. To coin a ghastly Gen Z-ism, NGL I actually like the sound of that.
Aesthetically, the whole thing is bound up in what the company characterises as "Retrofuturism." That, apparently, fuses aesthetics from "the two great ages of American High Futurism: the First Age—Midcentury Modern—from 1955 to 1969 (when everyone would soon be living in space) and the Second Age, from 1981 to 2001 (the same, but cyberspace). The rounded shapes, parabolic and flaring profiles, and muted colors of the Norbauer universe intentionally evoke the art, graphics, and architecture of these periods."
As if all that wasn't enough, Norbauer has also roped in British actor Anton Lesser to do the VO for the Seneca's promo video. You'll probably know Lesser best as Qyburn, the disgraced Maester in Game of Thrones who transforms the mortally wounded Gregor Clegane into a cross between the Hulk and Frankenstein. But that surely pales against Lesser's stint as Thomas More in the fabulous BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall.
Whatever, there's little doubt Norbauer has thrown money at this keyboard from every angle. As the company itself says, when developing the Seneca, their analyses "often revealed that the best solution would also be the most expensive and difficult." But they always did it, anyway.
Of course, you might wonder whether Seneca himself would have "done it." To précis Seneca's primary works, he was kinda into practising poverty and very much not into the "lunatic state" of greed and wealth. How Norbauer imagines that sits comfortably with one of the most expensive keyboards in recorded history is anyone's guess. As they say in the exam hall, discuss.
Still, if you can get past the cognitive dissonance, why not head over to Norbauer's website and put down a deposit? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there's a waiting list for the Seneca: First Edition. Of course, there is.
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