Just wanted to let you guys know that due to popular demand, Aliaz Silent Switches and Cherry MX Clears are now being sold as singles instead of packs of 50.
As I understand it, they’re actually totally usable for making holy zeal. The housing are zeal v1 clones, so a holy stem and a spring of your choice and you’re in business.
I like Aliaz in T1 housings [Taliaz] with ~65 G spring, although you can go lower.
Aliaz with 14mm 65 G TX spring is excellent for gaming, in my experience. I tried building it as a typing switch, but it turned out really good for FPS and maybe platformers.
I tried Aliaz stem in Boba before but it didn’t work out so great for me. Maybe I’ll try again, as it is a silent switch tactile option.
Are you sure that you aren’t mistaking Aliaz for another switch? While some people like them and some people don’t, I’ve never heard of anything outright bad about them. What do you dislike about them?
In any case, I personally do like them, so I don’t think we will be stopping our stocking of them - if anything else, so that I can continue to put them in my personal builds.
I haven’t tried it myself. But when I joined the hobby silent switches was the only thing on my mind, so when I did my research I never found anything good about them…
Now it’s to long ago for me to find that info again, but the memory remains.
Aliaz did / does have something of a questionable reputation in many parts.
If you look at older posts on them, there are complaints about the minimal tactility. Almost like a linear.
But the bigger complaint is the springs. Numerous people commented on how noisy the springs are. It’s supposed to be a silent switch, but you can hear the spring crunch!
Modders were frustrated that the switch doesn’t seem to take to lube well, meaning that you can’t change the smoothness or sound profile as much as you’d like. But at least you can change the spring.
A lot of the early dissatisfaction from Aliaz comes from the way it was ‘marketed.’ It was a “silent tactile” that costs .60 cents or more [in 2018 or so] and so people had high hopes for it. But the stem isn’t much different than a Gateron Brown, specifically a Gateron Silent Brown. There were a lot of comparisons made. People looked for the MX Clear influence in the stem, but it was hard to locate [early talk had it as a Clear-ish stem].
So people basically saw it as an overpriced Gateron Silent Brown. I’ve tried some Gat Silent Brown, though, and I don’t think it’s as quiet at Aliaz. Just replace the spring and you’re good-to-go.
I don’t think your impression of Aliaz is without warrant. There are some negatives to the switch that I’m familiar with as well:
The spring ping as @HungerMechanic pointed out is a huge one
The stock Aliaz switch can be rather scratchy
The actuation of the switch occurs slightly after the tactile bump, so it’s possible to miss keystrokes if your fingers’ muscle memory equates tactile bump as the actuation point
All that said, I think it’s a rather underrated switch with lots of potential to create a pleasant silent tactile experience. They tend to sell for cheaper than Boba U4s and Zilents, so that’s also another plus point