Once again, here at GizChina, we are taking a look at another amazing piece of kit and once again it comes from Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi. Rather than their phones or tablet, this time around we are reviewing the Xiaomi Piston 2 earphones. Find out if these budget earbuds live up to all the hype.
We have already been fortunate enough to review the original Xiaomi Piston Earphones, and now we are performing the same tests on the newest generation earphone. The Xiaomi Piston 2 are a low-cost earphone, but don’t let that put you off as performance and quality is on par with the best!
Xiaomi Piston 2 Review: Packaging
The Xiaomi Piston 2 arrived with us boxed in a creative origami-style paper sleeve, with instructions on the inside on how to safely unwind and store they earphones. The Xiaomi Piston 2, like the original Pistons, come in a plastic box, wrapped around a rubber block with cutouts for the wires, earbuds and inline remote.
The first thing that came to our mind after opening the plastic containment was chocolate. Nope, we aren’t going crazy over here ! The Xiaomi Piston 2 have the distinct aromour of Chocolate. Believe it or not, but this light fragrance has been added as a slight security feature which will help customers quickly tell if their Piston 2’s are real or not. With all the trouble Xiaomi has with cloned accessories, this small but clever details will make it harder for fraudsters to trick customers. The downside? Be prepared to get serious chocolate cravings while listening to your favorite tracks using these ear buds.
The plastic container also has a small storage area which comes complete with a few different size rubber earphone caps which can be switched to best suit your ear shape. A little cable clip is included as well.
Xiaomi Piston 2 Review: Technical Data
When designing the Piston 2 headphones, Xiaomi really was paying attention to every single detail. Starting from the all-new beryllium-alloy diaphragm, to the shape of the resonance chamber to the very plug of the headphones, everything has been thoroughly thought-out. The Xiaomi Piston 2 earphones features the following:
- Impedance: 12 Ohm
- Sensitivity: 94dB
- Power rating: 2mW
- Frequency range: 20Hz – 20kHz
- Plug: 3.5mm, gold-plated for reduced oxidation
- Housing: Aluminum
- Cable: Coated with Kevlar for improved tensile strength
Xiaomi Piston 2 Review: Build quality
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The Xiaomi Piston 2 features amazing build quality, way above the $20 asking price and on par with similar audio products of a higher price. The plug, the remote control and the headphones themselves are machined from aluminum, featuring a ribbed design for looks and also to aid grip. The color of the metal is slightly goldish, so great for the Bling-concious. Inside the headphones is protected by a metal mesh on both ends (the rear hole is acting as a vent). Finally Kevlar coated cable really is adding additional strength, and besides of that adds a nice touch to the product.
So the Xiaomi Piston 2 are well made quality bits of kit, but how do they feel? Slip them in your ears, and the Pistons a very comfy indeed. The silicon cover puts on just enough pressure to keep the Pistons in your ear while feeling extremely comfortable. The well sealed perfect fit, also helps to keep outside noise sources out, allowing you to enjoy your tunes without distraction.
Xiaomi Piston 2 Review: Audio quality
Now audio quality is what headphones are all about. The high build quality and comfort aren’t worth a dime if the audio quality lets everything down. Luckily Xiaomi’s “audio jewelry” live up to expectations and in fact, even outperformed what we had hoped for them.
For testing purpose we placed audio through a PiPo W1 tablet, which has a pretty good audio chip, and compared them side by side with a pair of Vivo DTS in ear buds and a pair of similar Sennheiser buds.
The first thing we noticed right away is the low background noise with the Xiaomi Piston 2 headphones. While both of the other headphones had a clearly noticeable background noise during silent music parts, it was significantly less with the Xiaomi Piston 2 headphones for whatever reason.
Another impressive part is the bass playback of these earphones. While the Vivo and Sennheiser headphones both have a similar levels of bass, it appears to be much more balanced with the Xiaomi Piston 2. Fine nuances in bass heavy tracks and clearly distinguishable from one another, while other products tended to merge it together. The Xiaomi Piston 2 appear to be well tuned towards a perfectly balanced and natural audio playback, leaving nothing to be desired, especially within this price level. A real kick in the buds for those overpriced competitors!
Xiaomi Piston 2 Review: Conlusion
Xiaomi really managed to create an impressive low-cost product for their audio addicted clients with the Piston 2 in-ear headphones. The audio quality from these in ear-buds goes well beyond the $19.99 asking price. Audio quality and comfort is better than any other cheap earphone on the market, besides that, the 3 button in-line remote is a great feature that many other fail to offer. This product really has the potential to seriously impact the mid-range headphone market, just like Xiaomi have achieved with their Android phones.
We ordered our review Xiaomi Piston 2 earphones from Merimobiles.com.
I have one. My very first reaction with this earphone is “Where’s the bass???” Mid and High is clear. Just need a bit more oomph on the low side. But here there’re some chinese earphone which cost half of the Piston and sound almost as good as this if not same. But unfortunately all of them didn’t last a full year, they have trouble with it’s quality, mostly on the 3.5mm jack.
use proper ear plugs, check the seating in your ear as well, or simply purchase originals 😉
there’s enough “oomph” 😉 well, maybe not so bass heavy like the creative ep630, but in balance with the rest.
tested with dubstep and other genres of bass music 😀
That’s important, there are a lot of fakes of this earphones in marquet. Most of people that say things like “…where’s the bass…” or that bass is simply decent but “…It could be slightly better” maybe not owns the original ones, becouse in the tests or reviews at tecnichal pages (like Head-Fi), always say that bass level, balance and quality of Xiaomi Piston 2 is very good, and the earphones presents a “customer friendly V-shaped response. Extension is quite good on both ends” or “The low end is quite prominent and rather dominant over the rest of the frequencies”.
They need bass boost and low the mid after that is just perfect! I’m very happy with them!
hey bro please tell me how to do the bass boost, n wht is the meaning o low the mid. please help m, i recently have bought mi piston 2. thanks in advance
mine is original, purchased through flash sale from authorized reseller of Xiaomi on my country (something like Flipkart on India).
I’m no audiophile, and never buy expensive sets, so I don’t really know how it compares against them. I can only compare it against my previous cheap sets.
Maybe I need to change the ear plugs.
And one more strange thing, it sounds worse when I choose Piston 2 sound enhancer profile, while my earpod (original too, from iPhone 5) sounds much better when I choose generic earphone profile. Maybe because I use cheap Redmi 1S phone
Let it burn
for some days
and Make sure you fit it deep inside your ears!! change the bud .
Simply the best earphones from every aspect. money, quality of sound and materials, design. Outstanding product
I bought them like 5 month ago, and I couldn’t be happier! They are very well made, the cable is nearly undestructible (Kevlar Fiber hahaha), and they are very very beautiful. The sound isn’t the best, but they sound better than some in-ear headphones that cost more than 75€! I’ll buy the OP Silver Bullet to compare, but the Piston 2 worth every euro they cost!
The sound isn’t good at all, has lots of treble and no bass, but if you know how to use a EQ, the sound improves A LOT.
It really depends on which device you are using them. Good sound chip = good sounding headphones. So after all these make up for a great tool for testing the audio quality of a device, too. 🙂
Not entirely correct. A bad sounding earpiece will never sound good regardless of device or chip in use.
Thogh Pistons sound good.
Using them with my Mi3 with the enhancer optimized for the Piston 2, and it sounds wonderful.
How did you manage that (5 months!!) . I have them for weeks now and I am worried that they will breakdown from the plug side( see that bend caused by the case and they won design award for that)>
Sound quality is above average!! Awesome
Just out of curiosity, what was your EQ curve like? I’m not really good at those…
For every music genre its own.
sweat resistant! runners listening music .. It is very important!!!!!!!!
I’m a bit late to the party here, but.. you mean they ARE sweat resistant?
I have one. My very first reaction with this earphone is “Where’s the bass???” Mid and High is clear. Just need a bit more oomph on the low side. But here there’re some chinese earphone which cost half of the Piston and sound almost as good as this if not same. But unfortunately all of them didn’t last a full year, they have trouble with it’s quality, mostly on the 3.5mm jack.
use proper ear plugs, check the seating in your ear as well, or simply purchase originals 😉
there’s enough “oomph” 😉 well, maybe not so bass heavy like the creative ep630, but in balance with the rest.
tested with dubstep and other genres of bass music 😀
That’s important, there are a lot of fakes of this earphones in marquet. Most of people that say things like “…where’s the bass…” or that bass is simply decent but “…It could be slightly better” maybe not owns the original ones, becouse in the tests or reviews at tecnichal pages (like Head-Fi), always say that bass level, balance and quality of Xiaomi Piston 2 is very good, and the earphones presents a “customer friendly V-shaped response. Extension is quite good on both ends” or “The low end is quite prominent and rather dominant over the rest of the frequencies”.
They need bass boost and low the mid after that is just perfect! I’m very happy with them!
mine is original, purchased through flash sale from authorized reseller of Xiaomi on my country (something like Flipkart on India).
I’m no audiophile, and never buy expensive sets, so I don’t really know how it compares against them. I can only compare it against my previous cheap sets.
Maybe I need to change the ear plugs.
And one more strange thing, it sounds worse when I choose Piston 2 sound enhancer profile, while my earpod (original too, from iPhone 5) sounds much better when I choose generic earphone profile. Maybe because I use cheap Redmi 1S phone
Let it burn
for some days
and Make sure you fit it deep inside your ears!! change the bud .
hey bro please tell me how to do the bass boost, n wht is the meaning o low the mid. please help m, i recently have bought mi piston 2. thanks in advance
Simply the best earphones from every aspect. money, quality of sound and materials, design. Outstanding product
I bought them like 5 month ago, and I couldn’t be happier! They are very well made, the cable is nearly undestructible (Kevlar Fiber hahaha), and they are very very beautiful. The sound isn’t the best, but they sound better than some in-ear headphones that cost more than 75€! I’ll buy the OP Silver Bullet to compare, but the Piston 2 worth every euro they cost!
The sound isn’t good at all, has lots of treble and no bass, but if you know how to use a EQ, the sound improves A LOT.
It really depends on which device you are using them. Good sound chip = good sounding headphones. So after all these make up for a great tool for testing the audio quality of a device, too. 🙂
Not entirely correct. A bad sounding earpiece will never sound good regardless of device or chip in use.
Using them with my Mi3 with the enhancer optimized for the Piston 2, and it sounds wonderful.
Thogh Pistons sound good.
How did you manage that (5 months!!) . I have them for weeks now and I am worried that they will breakdown from the plug side( see that bend caused by the case and they won design award for that)>
Sound quality is above average!! Awesome
Just out of curiosity, what was your EQ curve like? I’m not really good at those…
For every music genre its own.
I bought them from ibuygou in January.
Though I am satisfied I DO NOT find them comfortable,even my 12 euros Sony earphones fit much better without slipping off.
though the bass level is decent It could be slightly better.
I totally agree! The sound of these pistons are realy amazing when sealed of correctly.
But they keep slipping off and do not seal good. I tried al the different earcup pads but they all suck.
You could try Comply buds.
Could be a case of bad bud. Change it from your sony!!
nice suggestion but that’s the first thing I tried. It’s more related to the design of the ear phones than anything else
I really like them, been using them for a long time. The remote is very handy, start music without touching your phone, change track and volume.
I use the app JAYS Headset Control to program the button presses of the controller.
sweat resistant! runners listening music .. It is very important!!!!!!!!
I’m a bit late to the party here, but.. you mean they ARE sweat resistant?
I bought them from ibuygou in January.
Though I am satisfied I DO NOT find them comfortable,even my 12 euros Sony earphones fit much better without slipping off.
though the bass level is decent It could be slightly better.
I totally agree! The sound of these pistons are realy amazing when sealed of correctly.
But they keep slipping off and do not seal good. I tried al the different earcup pads but they all suck.
You could try Comply buds.
Could be a case of bad bud. Change it from your sony!!
nice suggestion but that’s the first thing I tried. It’s more related to the design of the ear phones than anything else
I really like them, been using them for a long time. The remote is very handy, start music without touching your phone, change track and volume.
I use the app JAYS Headset Control to program the button presses of the controller.
i agree, have the pistons 2 since they got released and they doing just fine on phone and iPod.
The kevlar coated part is also very sturdy and i had it a few times in my zipper (not that one) or caught elsewhere but they resist every breakage so far and are super flexible to such a degree putting my shures on the backbench as those cables suck
Hi River,
Is the part after remote also protected by Kevlar?, can’t make it out from the pictures online.
Thanks,
Suresh Kumar.
i agree, have the pistons 2 since they got released and they doing just fine on phone and iPod.
The kevlar coated part is also very sturdy and i had it a few times in my zipper (not that one) or caught elsewhere but they resist every breakage so far and are super flexible to such a degree putting my shures on the backbench as those cables suck
Hi River,
Is the part after remote also protected by Kevlar?, can’t make it out from the pictures online.
Thanks,
Suresh Kumar.
@christopherstraer:disqus can you make a comparison of Xiaomi Piston vs OnePlus Silver Bullet earphones please.
Will be done within next few days 😉
Not a huge fan of in ear headphones but I am a big fan of Xioami and those look pretty stunning.
@christopherstraer:disqus can you make a comparison of Xiaomi Piston vs OnePlus Silver Bullet earphones please.
Will be done within next few days 😉
Not a huge fan of in ear headphones but I am a big fan of Xioami and those look pretty stunning.
received them a little while back and i can tell you , they are just perfect for my taste. hp envy 15t(with beats) sounds wonderful, cube talk 9x sounds quite cool, tcl idol x too. but my e-ceros one sucks and can’t handle them, even with viper fx it just isn’t up to that level.
received them a little while back and i can tell you , they are just perfect for my taste. hp envy 15t(with beats) sounds wonderful, cube talk 9x sounds quite cool, tcl idol x too. but my e-ceros one sucks and can’t handle them, even with viper fx it just isn’t up to that level.
How does it fare against the Razer Hammerhead PRO?
How does it fare against the Razer Hammerhead PRO?
All I need to know about sound leakage from this earphones, “Is there any sound leakage outside from earphones”. I am not asking about noise disturbances from outer environment to inside after plug in to ears. I am asking noise leakage outside from ear phones after wearing it. PLEASE HELP ME I REALLY NEED THIS.
All I need to know about sound leakage from this earphones, “Is there any sound leakage outside from earphones”. I am not asking about noise disturbances from outer environment to inside after plug in to ears. I am asking noise leakage outside from ear phones after wearing it. PLEASE HELP ME I REALLY NEED THIS.
Good review,thank you so much.
I have bought this xiaomi earphones from Getone APP for only $9.99USD.
I like it and will recommend to my friends about this earphone.
Good review,thank you so much.
I have bought this xiaomi earphones from Getone APP for only $9.99USD.
I like it and will recommend to my friends about this earphone.