Riddle me this: Physical Audio Out vs Audio driver data stream

I hope this arcane little problem is of interest to someone with a deeper understanding of what is going on under the hood with MaxMSP, Kontakt and OS X.

I'm using Kontakt in the vst~ object in a patch(Max 5). I am getting a little glitch between notes. Here's the interesting part.

If I record the audio from the physical output jack, I get the glitch.
If I record using the MSP "Quickrecord" which says it records directly from the data stream of the audio driver, I get NO glitch.
(I have attached example recordings of each)
I also get no glitch if I send the MIDI commands out via IAC to a stand alone Kontakt.

Any idea why this would be so, or any way to get what I hear to be what the audio driver is putting out? Is this an OSX system level issue?