Have both. It's true that Pistons have lesser bass, but not in a bad way. After 20-30 hours of listening, the Pistons get better especially in the bass department. I also find them better at detail and clarity (No expert on sound here; just a casual listener) than ES18. So much so that I use the Pistons more regularly now.
I bought the pistons from flipkart yesterday, got them today. I see some people say the pistons are good at bass, some say they are low on bass, I personally feel the bass is too low even in the bass heavy songs. And the controls work fine on my Note 3.
And somebody compared the psitons to the Soundmagic PL30, well, the PL30 has really good bass, which is miles better than the pistons. Even my sony ex110 produces better bass than the pistons.
Tried the pistons with Note 3, Redmi 1s, Nexus 7 2012, Asus Laptop. Very low bass on all of them.
Pistons have plenty of bass. Make sure you are getting a proper seal with them. Try different ear tips. The medium sized tips that come in the box are much better.
Proper seal might be a problem, I dont find the medium and large tips that come with the pistons comfortable. [DOUBLEPOST=1418288526][/DOUBLEPOST]Anybody know of where I can get extra ear tips??
The ones that came with my sony ex110 are very comfortable and provide really good seal.