Agreed. Is the sound of the virtuoso violin the same as the standard violin patch? Or did they also improve the sound as well? I only have Cinesamples Solo strings, so I can't compare these. I am considering getting them as a future purchase to fill out my SF Chamber Strings.
The two legato violins, while they sound great together, are, expressively, completely different beasts.
The "first chair" doesn't play very fast, but it has amazing textures and allows you to craft phrases unlike any other violin I know, it just really hits a sweet spot for me. It's not a smooth as the Joshua Bell for instance, nor really as fast. But for 80% of what I actually want a violin for its become my go to violin. I've been posting examples of what it can do on other threads, so I'll spare everyone more of my noodlings here. I tend to think of it not so much as my 'first chair' violin as my 'neo-classical' - expressive, textural violin.
The virtuosic violin is really something else entirely, I've spent much of the weekend creating mock ups with it and when they say virtuosic, they mean really *#$%ing virtuosic - I've posted a rough WIP mock up on the other thread with some early results. And I'm still not sure I've scratched the surface. It has innovations in progressive vibrato (using Kontakt time machine), and other things like arpeggios. There is great depth to this instrument. In fact I think the marketing, if anything, undersells it. (As opposed to the first chairs violin, which the marketing definitely undersells).
In comparison, the Joshua Bell, by design, is more pristine, and at some tempos is going to be smoother, in they way you want you mozart concertos to be smooth, in particular because of things like rebowing, but because of its ethos in general. Each have their own sweet spots, and can do things the other can't. But they're very much in the same league.