And finally, I removed the snare under track so there was just mono track going to the stereo output and exported it twice; again the results were not identical.
By the way this was a different snare track - I just picked one randomly for this test.
i would guess at this point I could begin testing other sources, but I actually have work to do. I would have to think this isn’t only happening with snare tracks, but that, for some reason the impact is most noticeable with snares perhaps due to the high transient content. When I compare the results from different exports of what should be identical hits - the quietest one sound as if the attack has been shaved off to some extent.
i am no where near clipping by the way 