Hello Frank,
Thank you for contacting Infragistics Support.
I have been looking into your question and prepared a small sample that you might consider useful. It could be found here. Following the guidelines provided in the Template section of the Select topic, I am using the [(ngModel)] and I defined a global variable where is stored the default value in order to achieve your requirement.
Please test the sample on your side and let me know how it behaves. If this is not an accurate demonstration of what you are trying to achieve please feel free to modify it and send it back to me along with steps to reproduce. Alternatively, if the behavior cannot be replicated please feel free to provide your own small isolated sample. Remove any external dependencies and code that is not directly related to the issue, zip your application and attach it in this case.
Having a working sample on my side, which I can debug, is going to be very helpful in finding the root cause of this behavior.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards, Malin HadzhievEntry Level Software DeveloperInfragistics