IMO, as far as the board goes, you'd probably been better off waiting till you could afford a used A&H MixWiz(can be found for ~$500). I've had one of those "wonderful" mg166c's and there was a very noticable sound quality improvement switching to my current Mackie Onyx 1640(similar in quality and features in the MixWiz). Also for $300-500 you could have found a used first generation Yamaha 01v digital board.
Anyway good luck, that's just 2¢ FWIW
Hey Tommy, I had looked at the MixWiz boards as well as the ZED series from A&H along with the MG series from yamaha. The main use is personal monitoring at home for rehearsing and practicing on my own. I also considered one of the 01V from Yamaha and I was tempted but felt that since this is my first foray into mixers that an analog would be better to get started on. I was really concerned about feeling overwhelmed with a digital console with not having the visual path for each channel like you find on an analog console. Since I'm just learning this new art I know if I feel overwhelmed or frustrated that will keep me from wanting to use it.
So I figured for the price the MG was a decent mixer to get started on and learn on. While I know the MixWiz and the 01V are better boards I didn't want to make that $500+ investment in a board right away to find out for purposes of practicing and rehearsing that it didn't really do what I wanted. Also recording isn't a big need for me, if I find out later on that I want to start recording or doing videos for youtube or find that I want something different in sound I can sell this board without taking a huge hit and invest in a better one that will be more flexible for those needs.
That was my thought process going into this.