For some reason all my subscriptions were set to "site only" so I missed all these replies.
Better so, I was and am under stress preparing the ultimate comparison (it's around 120 HPs already, I want it done NOW and I will never again do something like this till I am retired old and rich and all my time is free time).
I wanted to give these Info in the Comparison, because those Samson I had found them too and I got them.
I have also had (from my mobile phone, international call, I cried when the bill arrived) a long conversation with the Marketing Manager at Samson, Ira Cary Blanco.
I have also asked Olle, founder and owner of XTZ, but he is having health issues and is overwhelmed by his job and wanted to investigate the matter better with the Chinese Factory before commenting.
The informations I could collect are that supposedly both Companies collaborate with the same Chinese Factory. The external design belongs to that Factory and neither Samson nor XTZ paid for the exclusive. But the internal components, circuits and drivers are different and are fruit of a collaboration between the Factory and the engineers of each Company.
It is not clear which of the two Companies started the R&D first, Olle was as said under high stress and was so in bad mood for this (seemed unaware of what his worker wrote on the XTZ forum, seemed like he completely ignored the existence of these Samson and was shocked). I could not insist specially given his health issues.
Ira told me something about 2014 as release date but I find in Internet that the RTE2 were released around April 2015. I asked him again and he never answered.
They were also supposed to send me a test unit (the one I have does not come from them and I must give it back soon) but they didn't nor they answer now when I ask about it. Which is not the most transparent attitude but they may be just busy. I will update here in the future what they finally did and said.
The two headphones do not sound the same, although they do not sound totally different. I do not want to say too much now, I need to test more. My preference goes to XTZ even without Dirac, but the Samson may be a good choice for people not wanting any Dirac and looking for a more balanced sound out of the box with less bass.
Anyway as said I need to test more.
The Samson do not cost 30 anyway. But if you find them for 30 you should buy them. They cannot beat the XTZ with Dirac (few BT headphones in the world can, and I would not even be sure they "beat" the Divine+Dirac, I would say they offer a different sound on the same level of quality), but for 30 I would buy them and keep them as all around pair which I may use from time to time.
The reason while the sound is relatively similar may be that the design was a collaboration with the same Factory and some aspects of the internal components may be similar, and that the external body and cups influence the sound too.
Anyway, the Dirac filters are made from a XTZ unit and work only with the sound of the XTZ Headphone Divine. And we all know that no matter how good the Divine sound without Dirac, we buy them for how they sound with Dirac, period. That is the extra which makes them out of reach and put them on a level together with the biggest monsters on the market.
And I confirm this now that I have testes almost ALL BT HPs on the Market in the last two months. The Divine with Dirac are just ON TOP, one of the best 10 in the world, period.
So, for me there is no comparison between RTE2 and Divine.
But if you are not interested in Dirac, it is another story. But in that case your panorama of choices has no reason to be reduced to Divine or RTE2. There is a whole world of options there.