GBA (Not SP) Aftermarket Buttons

[Jedi Master Baiter]

So I bought a GBA mod (IPS Screen, Speakers, Battery) and everything is awesome

...except the buttons. They are aftermarket, and it feels like there's extra distance to register a press. The d-pad is very noticeable: I'll tap a direction and nothing will happen, but if I push harder, I'll feel a hard 'click' and that's annoying to have to do.

Is this caused by the buttons or the membrane? Any aftermarket recommendations? Should I just find OEM buttons? OEM membranes? Both?

Edit: I'm used to the GBA SP buttons. I've read that original GBA buttons are 'mushy' compared to the 'clicky' SP. The problem is... these don't feel mushy. They feel clicky, but with more distance to travel to fully depress, and there's two clicks: first a soft click that doesn't register anything, and a second hard click that will actually register a press.

[P]

Two clicks huh? That's pretty weird. I would guess it's using cheap membranes... Do the buttons look any different from original ones?

I have the original GBA and the SP, both unmodded. My original GBA has buttons similar to the Famicom controller or other typical Nintendo controllers (so not clicky at all), perhaps even a bit more mushy than the Famicom buttons. They are not as mushy as the buttons of certain really cheap poor quality controllers though.
The SP has indeed kinda clicky buttons, they are not microswitch-clicky but definitely more clicky than any previous Nintendo controller. I heard that they have very little contact bounce (which is considered a good property for buttons in general).

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Yes, the buttons and membrane are aftermarket. Here's the eBay link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/316157323797?nordt=true

I'm going to go to my local retro game shop and see if they have OEM GBAs I can try out.

Edit: Someone rear-ended my truck. Now I can't go anywhere unless I fix that taillight.

Edit: Okay, that trip was practically for nothing. They had a GBA, but with no batteries and I couldn't test it out. I was able to feel the buttons and notice they weren't very clicky. I also noticed there was much distance for pressing them.

[P]

Yeah original GBA has noticably more throw than SP. More similar to Famicom and Super Famicom.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

I went ahead and bought a bunch of different brands of GBA buttons and membranes (including OEM) from Hand Held Legend.

I'm going to mix and match and see how it goes.

Thinking about it now, I probably should have bought some shells as well.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

So I finally had the chance to take it apart (had to buy another tri-point screwdriver ) and I'm still going through the different buttons/membranes.

First I tried what I think were the OEM buttons and their membrane. First of all, it was missing a 'B' button. Second, it feels much the same as whatever buttons were on it before, so pass.

Next, I tried the Retrosix Prestige buttons with their membranes. There is a clear difference! They feel 'mushier,' they are hard to press, and feel like there's resistance like springs pushing back. It's hard to tell if I like this better or not. I wish I had more time to test this. This is going to be a Christmas gift for someone.

A big problem right now is, there is a clean amp pro mod that seemed to be working fine until I opened it. Now I can hear a weird noise when loading my game from my flashcart. Maybe this was there the entire time and I didn't notice it? (it can also be heard on an unmodded GBASP). There's supposed to be an anti-hiss mod done to this, but I can't tell where.

Edit:
Now I tried the Funnyplaying buttons combined with the Retrosix Prestige membranes. Immediately I didn't like how hard the On/Off switch was to move, so I switched it out for whatever On/Off switch was included when I got the mod. The d-pad is now clicky, but not too clicky: it doesn't feel like there's two clicks, there's significant resistance, but it feels just right. The A/B buttons, however, do have that double click, but it's not terrible. Still, I'm going to experiment with those.

Another issue that came up now, is I'm noticing light bleed on the left side of the screen. The shell is opaque, but I can see light escaping underneath. Maybe this is because I'm only putting in half the screws? I hope so.

[P]

it was missing a 'B' button.

Ugh, not fun when they make mistakes like that.

Next, I tried the Retrosix Prestige buttons with their membranes. There is a clear difference! They feel 'mushier,' they are hard to press, and feel like there's resistance like springs pushing back. It's hard to tell if I like this better or not.

Hmm, doesn't sound too good. I think for buttons to perform well in video games they should have very little pressure resistance (but not so little that they engage by merely touching them), minimally tactile (but still have some tactility), a pretty short throw and minimal contact bounce (not a big problem in video games though).
Only arcade buttons achieves that ideal level of performance but the controller should have something in that direction.

A big problem right now is, there is a clean amp pro mod that seemed to be working fine until I opened it. Now I can hear a weird noise when loading my game from my flashcart. Maybe this was there the entire time and I didn't notice it? (it can also be heard on an unmodded GBASP). There's supposed to be an anti-hiss mod done to this, but I can't tell where.

This might not be the hardware's fault. I have an Everdrive for Game Boy and it's just very noisy in the menu where you select the game for some reason, it's the most noticable on my GBC because it supposedly has a very noisy DAC, but it's audible on other systems too. Probably whoever programmed the flashcart menu forgot to mute the APU (for better or for worse). Shouldn't matter as long as it's not noisy when running a game.

Edit:
Now I tried the Funnyplaying buttons combined with the Retrosix Prestige membranes. Immediately I didn't like how hard the On/Off switch was to move, so I switched it out for whatever On/Off switch was included when I got the mod. The d-pad is now clicky, but not too clicky: it doesn't feel like there's two clicks, there's significant resistance, but it feels just right. The A/B buttons, however, do have that double click, but it's not terrible. Still, I'm going to experiment with those.

OK that sounds much better.

Another issue that came up now, is I'm noticing light bleed on the left side of the screen. The shell is opaque, but I can see light escaping underneath. Maybe this is because I'm only putting in half the screws? I hope so.

Yeah maybe, did you put in screws only on the left side?