Testing Rat build - Solid state, Headphone amp, Usb interface

[Fndr8875]

Hi, so i etched a tonepad rat pcb, got it wired up and everyhting worked one first attempt. I wish i had a tube amp, but right now i just have to make due with what i do have. So in testing the small solid state amp i had there was a huge volume boost, so much so i wondered how i could really use the pedal with distortion turned up even with volume turned down pretty low on the pedal. Next i used a honeytone little battery powered amp so that i could use headphone out to see what it would sound like. I got much more unity type gain, instead of pretty loud with pedal on to next to inaudible clean tone with SS amp. Next i plugged up my irig HD and started amplitube 4, with sigal going into pedal then into irig interface. and headphones, got much closer to useable settings where with Rat off i still had a clean tone i could hear and work with. I also tested my clone with the amplitube rat pedal, and it really sounded super close. Anyway i use my irig HD alot , mainly through my iphone bc the IOS just seems superior to windows 10, even though ik multimedia claims windows 10 audio processing should be almost as good. so what im getting at is using a usb interface with analog pedals a bad way to test pedals, vs crappy little solid state amp? just curious what peoples opinions are.