Hi Francois, I've explored all your suggestions sadly still relentlessly silent. Here is a screenshot of my audio routing page.. the syntax wasn't quite as you said but logically the same..here, I see MIX PRST 3 gives similar Main/headphones settings ?
but thought I'd check with you
Still no sound heard although HW indicates sound is behaving normally.
The only other thing that occurs to me is that the USB socket I'm using ( just for convenience in this " test phase") is an auxiliary one on the touch screen - but the 2i2 set up normally so I'm not sure whether this is relevant.
I'm bound to remark that I never had problems with soundcards in HW4 - there is a considerably greater complexity in HWV so if anything else comes to mind I should love to hear your thoughts
Iain thanks for your inputs as well
Be careful what you set your heart on......you may achieve it.