Hilarious, but I forgot about them being hooked up to the Zen. Now that you mention it I remember hooking up the Paramours to the 2 Pi and that the difference in volume made it hard to tell the differences in the amps (other than hum). Seemed like there was more punch in the bottom end with the Paramours, but again that may have been the volume. I definitely did not get much of a listen with the preamp hooked up, and it would have been cool to A/B between the Paramour/Preamp combination and the Zen at similar volume levels. We'll try to make that happen at the next get together! Thanks for being my brain, Wayne!