Light linear with an LY stem in PA12 top and PA2.0 bottom housings. Voiced as a clacky, high-pitched poppy linear; popular as a budget pick for builders chasing a clean top-out without a deep thock.
Cherry's MX2A landed in 2023 with a real engineering update — factory lube, tighter tolerances, the same 100M-press lifespan. The reason the discourse cooled isn't that the switch failed; it's that the enthusiast slot it aimed at was already claimed by the time it arrived.
Two years ago HMX was a name on a vendor page nobody pronounced confidently. Today the Cloud sits second on our W19 tracker and lands in half the $120 prebuilts the scene argues about. The rise wasn't an accident.
Lube moves the sound and feel of a switch in ways nothing else in the build can. It also chews up a Saturday and ruins switches when applied with the enthusiasm the rabbit-hole crowd recommends. Here is the version that earns its keep.
HMX Cloud Linear appears in editor-curated build sheets.