ขาย Xiaomi Hybrid หูฟัง IEM เสียงดีไดร์เวอร์แบบ Hybrid BA+dynamic

In November 2015 Mi announced a new flagship headphone which should be dubbed Xiaomi Hybrid IEM (They no longer carry the piston design are no longer single drivers). The aim of the thread is to provide information and news about new Pistons. The newest update of the xiaomi headphone have a whole new design (again), and now feature a full CNC milled casing. The drivers have also been completely changed (details below)

Full chinese descriptions of the new hybrids are available here: http://www.mi.com/quantie

Naming

As this product is not officially available in the global market, there is no official english name. The chinese name is "小米圈铁耳机" which would translate to Xiaomi Hybrid IEM. 

Background 

The Xiaomi Pistons 2.0 made quite a big splash in the community by providing affordable head phones at a reasonable price. They followed up with the Pistons 3.0 in March 2015, which featured an all new design. The IEMs were well received and received some pretty good reviews (check out the Pistons 3.0 Thread). 

Versions

Hybrid IEM (Klippel Drivers) - Released on 11th Nov 2015 

Pistons 3.0 (Spiral Drivers) - Release in March 2015, these pistons are only available in the black version. 

Pistons 2.1 & 2.0 (Beryllium Drivers)- This version of the pistons gained a high regard on Head-Fi for their budget price and their stand out sound quality. Check out this Head-Fi thread on these pistons for more information

Design 

Updated Drivers: These hybrids features a new set a drivers. This time they are using what they are calling "Klippel Drivers" and it appears that they are hybrid IEM drivers. This is advertised as a set of  "动圈 "-  dynamic driver and "动铁” - armature drivers. The schematics of the drivers are shown below:

Diagram Correction (Thanks ForgottenSpy) these are the correct translations for the two drivers. 

动圈 - dynamic driver

动铁 - armature driver

You can read more about hybrid drivers in the following thread "http://www.head-fi.org/t/615857/the-hybrid-iem-thread-the-best-of-both-worlds" by gnarlsagan. It seems pretty amazing how Xiaomi managed to produce a hybrid IEM and sell in the 16 USD price range instead of 199 USD. 

Sadly this time Xiaomi did not provide any frequency response curves. What they did promise is that these IEMs have been "professionally tuned" by Luca Bignardi - however without a full frequency response curve this is more or less fluff. 

The IEMs themselves have a CNC milled metal casing. Pistons 3.0 had a plastic casing which made it feel slightly cheaper and less premium. 

Remote - The remote supports android systems and has partial support for iOS. On android all 3 buttons work and can control the volume. On iOS only the middle Stop/ play button works (tested on iphone 6).

The remote is positioned on the cable for the right earphone, around 2 inches below the earphone itself. 

Pricing and Ordering info

Official retail pricing (Mi.com) is at 99 RMB (~ 16 USD), which is the same price as all the previous Pistons.

I'll post links of international resellers after they are verified. 

**Note: Due to shill marketers, forum admins have warned new members not to post links to resellers**

First Impressions:

Source:  FLAC, mp3, Tidal. Genres: Rock, Acoustic, Pop, Trance, Metal. Equipment PC - Aune T1 DAC, Samsung S4

Burn in time: 30 hours

Comfort: In terms of comfort, These IEMs are an iterative improvement on already quite comfortable spiral design of Piston 3.0. As you can see from the following image, the angle of the nozzle has been slightly adjusted to improve comfort – otherwise everything else is unchanged. The earpiece is is made out of CNC milled metal, hence making it feel much more expensive. 

Bass

When I first put on the new hybrid IEMs I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of bass it provided. The bass was distinct and more rich than that of the Pistons 2.0 – in comparison it sounds less muffled and more detailed. The bass is definitely not overpowering and is nowhere near bass-head level. I found trance music most enjoyable with these IEMs, and spent more time listening to Infected Mushroom / AC/DC then I usually do. I would like to note with more chill/acoustic music I found that there was a bit too much bass leading to rhythm guitars / drum beats being more pronounced - (Update) Luckily the emphasis on bass fades with after an 20 hour burn in. In fact after the burn in, I can no longer hear the overemphasis on bass. 

Mids

Mids are weakest part of these IEMs. They are definitely a step up from Pistons 2.0 (Could clearly hear the huskiness of Bryan Adams) but nowhere as detailed as 3.0. If you are used to listening to more balanced IEMs like the Vsonic GR07 (I know this is much more expensive), then you will definitely feel that something is missing. This is not surprising as this is a 1+1 hybrid and not a 1+2. I would like to note that this might be improved with a more extensive burn-in.

Highs

Vocals are clear and crisp – one of the benefits of having an armature driver. Both female and male vocals sound great. Cymbals are clear. Nothing too special here.

Conclusion:  In terms of sound signature, Xiaomi is definitely looking to improve upon the V-shaped legacy of Pistons 2.0. The hybrid drivers bring a lot to the table, and definitely give a sound that’s usually only found a much more expensive IEMs. 

Specs

Ears on with Xiaomi’s 4th generation earphones. Do they make up in the bass dept where the Piston 3 failed? Find out in our Xiaomi Hybrid Earphones Review.

Xiaomi are on their 4th generation earphone model, with an all new design, new packaging and the return of deep heavy bass. The Xiaomi Hybrid launched a few weeks ago in China and already online stores like Shop.Gizchina.Com are offering the IEM’s on sale internationally, so how to they fair?

Xiaomi Hybrid Earphones Review – Design

As soon as the Xiaomi Hybrid earphones arrived on my desk I knew I was about to see something different. The new Hybrid comes in an all new packaging, which in all honesty doesn’t do the earphones justice.

Past Xiaomi earphones have come in plastic cases with rubber inserts for winding the Kevlar coated cables around and space in the rear for optional earbud covers of different sizes.

The Xiaomi Hybrid come in a plain cardboard box. There are no luxurious such as a carry case or even a carry bag, and spare earbud covers come in an unmarked package that could easily be thrown away it is so lightweight (so be careful with the packaging).

The lack of a fancy box might be seen as a downgrade, but in my personal use I never attempted to place my Piston back in the packaging once I unraveled them. What’s more important to me is the Xiaomi Hybrid earphones themselves and they are top quality items.

On the Chinese Xiaomi website the Hybrid are called the ‘Iron Ring’ which sort of explains parts of the design of the earphone shape. The body is made of light weight CNC machined alloy, with a ‘ring’ design, before an angled sound channel.

I was reminded of the original UMi Voix earphones when I unboxed the Xiaomi Hybrid earphone, but the Xiaomi’s are much more compact, better finished, lighter weight and much more comfortable in the ear (so generally all round better).

The cables exist the metal body of the Hybrid through a black plastic structure that looks like it is holding on to the main metal body like a Lego arm or small plastic spanner. It sounds odd, but take a look at the photos to see what I am on about.

A simple alloy bodied remote control is built-in to the right side ear cable. It’s a 3 button design exactly the same as the control on the Xiaomi Piston 3 earphones.

At the point the wires join to for the ‘Y’ shape there’s a plastic piece (the Piston 3 has an alloy piece) then a Kevlar, anti-tangle coated wire makes its way to the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Xiaomi Hybrid Earphones Review – Sound and Performance

The Xiaomi Piston 3 were already a pretty good earphone, but in comparison to the Xiaomi Piston 2 the general conclusion is that they lacked in bass. The 4th generation Xiaomi Hybrid have really been redesigned to solve this complaint.

The new design really sees a huge improvement in bass, while not having much of an effect on the overall clarity of the audio. The change in Bass between the Piston 3 and Hybrid is so great that I had to drastically reduce the use of Bass Enhancement when listing to music on the OnePlus X.

What really sets the Xiaomi Hybrid apart from other budget earphones are the hybrid dual drivers. Mids and highs are handled by an armature driver while a dynamic driver takes care of lows. This is usually a feature kept in reserve for more expensive audio hardware, and a real benefit of the Xiaomi Hybrids design, especially at the low retail price of just $24.99.

Another benefit the Xiaomi Hybrid over the Piston 3 is noise isolation. I found the Piston 3 leaked a lot of sound, but the Hybrid’s closed design really helps to prevent that leakage, and the increase in speaker sensitivity from 98dB (in the Piston 3) to 101dB.

Xiaomi Hybrid Earphones Review – Gallery

 

Xiaomi Hybrid Earphones Review – Conclusion

If you are one of the people who tried the Piston 3 and were disappointed by the lack of bass, then you are going to certainly appreciate the upgrades made to the Xiaomi Hybrid. Bass is only part of the picture the overall sound stage is impressive and the build/design is much more upmarket (in my opinion).

If you are a GizChina regular then you will likely be on Android and so compatibility isn’t an issue, but if you are an iOS user then the remote isn’t fully compatible, so keep this in mind (not that it affects the audio experience).

Overall the Xiaomi Hybrid are an improvement over the Piston 3, and well worth the update. I’ll certainly be switching to these for my daily drivers.