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

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.