Now let me get this straight - you're comparing the sound from the analog
outputs of the Virus with what you're getting from your soundcard by way
of the Virus USB and your DAW. And you expect them to be the same?
Like Marc said, at the minimum you'd have to use the Virus as your sound
card. And you'll need to be sure you're DAW is not touching the bits - Live
is the only one I've seen make official statements about when they do and
don't touch the bits.
And you'll need knowledge of routing/word-lengths/sample-rates through
the Virus. Marc's statement implies there is equivalence here, but he didn't
specifically say.
Of course, if you have a good sound card, and the differences are gross, you
might be able to make some statements about it. In this case, you shouldn't
be playing while listening. And the performance has to be the same.
You might do this by sequencing a MIDI performance and then recording
audio of that sequence via USB. Now you'd have both a MIDI sequence to
play the Virus (giving you output via Virus analog outs), and a USB audio
recording of the same performance which you'd listen to through your
sound card. Of course, aside from the DAW and the sound card, the word
length and sample rate are variables here. I think this is similar to what
Marc was talking about by using the Virus as your sound card.
Then you could tweak the levels to be equal (yet another variable) and sit
back and listen.
If you've got really good A/D converters, you could record the analog outs
of the Virus back into your DAW, and clinically compare that with the USB
recording i.e. invert phase of one and listen/look. You could also do this
via the S/PDIF out of the Virus i.e. USB vs S/PDIF.
-Wayne
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