Well if you wants to hear my take of how I feel about the zens paired with the 2 amp ok then , since your kind of music signature preferences of smooth and love playing loud music with the zens is of similar to my preference for warmth smoothing sounding Sig on loud , that means we're both at least on the same frequency level .
Which make me feel won't waste quality time interacts with you .
but I have to tell you in advance , don't expect too much from my answer , if u want to ask very technical or very specific things then I'm not the one . There are better ones out there mainly because of my describing skill are very poor and not very good at finding the correct , proper or most suitable, appropriate words to describe something correctly.
My answer i try to give are always the most simple and most straight forward , Good or not good only.
Both RA2.0 , RA2B are very good with the zens . If the RA2.0 can drive the zens to heaven then the RA2B can drive the zens to outer space.
Which means the balanced are much much better to drive and sound much more better on the zens than the single end .
But one thing is when you conpare the spec chart with the $300+ RA2.0 to the $800+ RA2B .
Topology wise are of course very different because one is a balanced and the other a single end , the implementation on the caps , opamps are very much different too , so the sounding of course is very the different ? No not quite , at least what I'm listening on my ears .
Both share that same sig, not overly bright nor thin , but very rich , smooth and lush with the zens .
My listening experience with both is that both the RA2B , RA2.0 had excel in everything what my expectations is for my taste of a headphones amp . what ever genre songs , type of music I throw at them , melodeath metal , heavy metal , rock pop edm techno sentiment , instruments , guitars , drums , bass , Especially live recordings which I love most , they sing with the Zen and sing it beautifully without a hiss .
Neutral natural sound, balanced without coloured anything on the Zen.
In regards with sound , Both RA2.0 and RA2B are on par with each other , the main difference between this two is one is a balanced with full size XLR input/output , the other as a single end 3.5mm input/output .
Driving Power aside .
The other noticeable difference when doing side by side comparison between the 2 is the Balanced sound more fuller more lush and energy than the single end .
Other than the points above I found nothing too noticeable difference in sonic between them .
I really loved both amp combo with the zens especially the Zen with oyaide wires than the bright Sig of the cardas golden ratio zoe , but with all honesty I loved them all , they all sing very beautifully without shouty or overly harsh in anyway .
Great combo among each other .
If I'm experiencing , having and enjoying TOTL , very Hi end quality results with the Zen earbud + Runabout amp combination , so can you too bro to experience what I had experienced with the combination .
No need to think too much about it bro, now that I give u the confidence , go grab that $200+ RA2 Bal Lite combo with your Zen . Your dap should be a good complement to the combo , just like how my LGV20 , QLS QA360 , QA360LE a good complement with the combo .
