Thoughts/Suggestions on this rig?

[Zsn]

I'm putting together a mid-range recording rig with a path to later upgrade the converters and preamps. I will be recording drums/guitar/bass/keys/etc... I'm planning on phase-one consisting of an 800r -> lightbridge -> iMac 24" 2.33GHz 2GB RAM and later on, phase-two would entail bypassing the ADs on the 800r, bypassing the monitoring DAs on the lightbridge and getting an AD-16X and MiniDAC.

I've done a good deal of research on these components, and I'd like to believe that they will serve me well in this configuration. I understand that the iMacs don't offer much expandability but I will only be hooking up one firewire device, and since all the fw ports are on the same bus, I could use a usb HD for archiving.

My question is whether or not I am going to run into latency or compatibility problems in general or during the transition to phase-two - and whether or not, in your opinion, this approach makes sense. Phase-one is really just a stall until I could afford the better converters - but I'd like to get started already.

[petessound@hotm]

mics? DAW? this things will greatly affect your budget and sound more than A/Ds

[Zsn]

Mics: e609, at4040 (so far...)
DAW: Cubase Std4 or PT-MPW - still deciding

I believe the DAW software will play a negligible role, esp. compared to the importance of converters. My mics aren't great, (my pres won't be great either) but the high quality converters that I have heard allow the sound to "breathe", the cheaper ones make the signal sound dead-on-arrival. I also figure that nice converters will allow me to get the most out of the equipment that I already have - eventually I will upgrade the pre's and mic of course...