[Nexus 5 Accessories] shhbz:
Xiaomi Piston 2- In-Ear-Headphone v2.1-Updated edition 2014​

Well after Xiaomi Piston Earbuds won IF Design Award 2014 in Germany and coming up with the latest Xiaomi Piston v2.1 edition or the old v2 which got hyped as the v2.1,after it grabbed all attention and for its price to performance ratio, I decided to get one myself so ordered it from ali express at a discounted price of 19.2$ as it was on sale when I made my purchase and it took only 16 days to reach me in Delhi, now moving on with the review.

Box and Packaging​

These in ear Xiaomi headphones comes in a brown color art paper wrapped, with brief instructions to remove the earphone from the rubber carry case and compatibility explained on the paperpack itself. At the back of the packaging detail are imprinted and on scanning the bar code at the back you will come to know the import date/or maybe the date of manufacture which for me was 09/05/2014 as shown in picture. At the bottom of the paperpack there is a QR code which leads to downloading a music app which I believe was of no use as it was completely in Chinese so could not get any details on it.

On removing the the paperpack you will find a transparent case and a beauty, gold version of the piston2.1 visible through the transparent case all set to unfold. On opening the case though I was expecting a chocolate smell but it was not there in this 2.1 (Hongkong version) though I made up for that with a Bournville chocolate alongside.

It even provides a carry case kind of stuff made of rubber which seems to hold the headset quite safe actually the headset comes wrapped on the same dark chocolate color rubber case.

Design & Build

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The first thing you would notice about the entire earphones is the Kevlar braided cords with y shaped split. The cord is Pull-resistant Kevlar tough. Xiaomi’s claim that these are tangle-free cables, which holds true as the braided part of the cable rarely tangled up when use.

Under the rubber housing in the carrying case, you will find three sets of different sized silicone ear buds small, medium and large with imprints of S,M,L writing inside the box that you can switch to suit your need. Xiaomi also included a holding metal clip to prevent the cords from swaying everywhere while moving so you can fix it up with your shirt and be tension free.

Audio Quality

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These v2.1 piston impedance is 16 ohms -- how this helps

Headphone impedance is usually increased by thinner wire and most importantly more turns of wire in the voice coil. More turns or loops creates a larger field (area of magnetic influence). In layman's terms more magnetic force for the coil to move the diaphragm. Thinner wire usually works out to a lighter, more responsive diaphragm. Depending on the headphone design, this may lead to more accurate response.

The android in-line remote buttons works great with the Nexus5, the vol up and down and in call button, play/pause/call with a single click works fine, double press to load up music app, long press to access google now. The voice quality over the headphone very crisp and clear. Since Xiaomi had made this headset for the Mi phone range which happens to be an android phone so most probably it will work with other android phones too out of the box.

It comes with Beryllium Alloy Diaphragm helping in Boosting the Sound Performance and Stabilizing High and Low Frequency Effects. It reproduce great bass and a high treble performance and for the amount it’s a steal. Beryllium alloys are expensive, high processing difficulty, in the past only used in the world's top audio equipment. Now came a new version of millet piston headphones with the same. The 3.5mm metallic gold plated plug helps in restoring more realistic sound.

Noise Isolation

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Well these piston quite shock me when it comes to noise isolation as it isolate you from ambient noise. The noise isolation usually isn’t a lot, but enough to muffle the surrounding sound and with the right combination of the ear buds it will certainly give you great results.

Since, they are still in burning period so a lot more is expected as just spent few hours of test with the Xiaomi Piston2.1 and configuring it with viper4android has boosted the sound even more, though the right tuning is still due to be found but trust me these piston will simply blow your mind with great bass and for me it happened to be the best in-ear-headphone till date as I never ever wanted to spend huge on a headphone but at this price it's a product to bag in.

Here is my review ratings based on the above please share your ratings too if you own a piston along nexus 5.

Voice/Mic Quality 4.5/5

Sound Quality 5/5(considering the price factor)

Comfort 4/5

Durability 4.5/5

Design and

form factor 5/5

Please consider the poll if you would be interested in Xiaomi Piston along Nexus 5.

For people who wish to know the diffrence between the fake and original can check out this link for a better understanding ,as I did not wanted to flood the thread with pic so providing a link to help who wish to know the diffrence http://www.aliexpress.com/item/100-...ne-for-hongmi-1s-Mi2-Mi3-Free/1720645724.html

UPDATE FOR INDIAN BUYERS FROM FLIPKART

Just received the delivery from flipkart and on close comparison with the piston2 --updated version from aliexpress this is what my findings are

* Well the packaging difference was just on the part of the color as flipkart has the white packaging and the other one from aliexpress was in brown though the instruction printed inside the outside paperpack was identical just the language difference one was in chinese and other in English.

*The rubber case on both seemed pretty identical though the flipkart brown case was a bit darker than the aliexpress case but ignorable.

*Coming to the Piston visually they looked same in all aspects except few which was that the piston from flipkart was a bit champagne gold tone while the aliexpress stuff was pure gold and the Kevlar braided cords on the flipkart version did not felt that smooth and a bit thicker than the aliexpress stuff. So,after going through all inspection from visual end the main testing came in and guess what the Piston from Flipkart does not sound that great as the aliexpress one.

* The kevlar cord did not had any QR code to scan on the Piston from flipkart.

The BASS was not full and punchy comparing it with the Piston delivered from aliexpress.

The treble was a bit high on the Piston from flipkart and to me it sound a bit weird as it loose the effect of bass, so the right balance was not there with the bass and treble.

However if I am to assume people who got the piston from flipkart may not agree to my saying but when it comes to real comparision one on one with the piston from flipkart and aliexpress, the later performed much better and real.

Note: All testing was done at equal volume and same settings, as I listened to few electro and some bollywood numbers. So, coming to the conclusion though the flipkart piston has not gone through the burn in period but still it fails when compared to piston from aliexpress as they sound better even when I first plug them in and till now hardly had burn in that much ,maybe 2 hours till now from the date received.

Here are some pictures in comparison and yes the piston from flipkart do come with S/M/L label on box and L/R marking on the headset along with clip but it was quite diffrent from marking on the piston from aliexpress, as almost all reviews and pictures I have seen over the net L/R marking on Piston from aliexpress matches with others shown online as it is in bit orange marking but on the flipkart the marking was embossed on the black rubber itself and now to the most shocking thing was the placing of the hole found under the ear-tip of the headphones see pictures for details.

Conclusion: I find the imported version to be better than the flipkart stuff