Halo U4
- Halo housing
- Gazzew U4 silent tactile stem
- 62g gold-plated spring from KBDfans
- Very quiet
- Strong tactility w/o harshness
- “Complex” dampened feel
Flavor-text:
After having tried prototype “clear” U4 stems in Halo housings and finding them a little muddy and underwhelming, I didn’t expect much different from the white ones that came pre-assembled in the new Boba housings.
I love being wrong about these things.
What we have here is something that to my sensibilities, is altogether more mellow and pleasant than the Boba U4. While the Boba U4 is a study in tight tolerances and steroid-aggressive tactility somehow wrapped in very quiet package, the Halo U4 is a glimpse into novel, complex dampening. I’ll do my best to explain.
The weighting of this combination reaches a sort of “valley” just as the tactile bump ends, with the spring providing plenty of resistance against bottoming-out before reaching the already soft silicone pads. While some U4 combos I have tried make it practically unavoidable to slam right into those dampeners, this one makes it remarkably easy not to bottom-out even while retaining a fair amount of the U4’s strong bump profile.
The result is a switch that’s snappy yet soft; a bit like biting through a stick of chocolate that’s embedded in a big, pillow-y marshmallow.
If we’re talking letter-shaped bumps, this one’s a “P” - but in cursive. Resistance up-top that you push through and overcome to be met with a springy cushion right as the rounded bump ends. Pressing the switch lightly, it almost feels as if it has reduced travel - but if you push through that, there’s just a bit more travel before you hit the gummy-soft dampening pads on the bottom-out.
Another bonus of the updated U4 stem is a bit more stability than most other Halo housing combinations I’ve tried, albeit less than the all-but-perfect tolerances between these stems and Boba housings.