Hi George,
I’d say the Mixtrack has too many limitations, the lack of sound card being one. While it is possible to use your PC sound card (and it having 6 outputs means nothing, just that it’s surround sound, which is useless for DJ-ing) to power the master output to your speakers, you’d have to run your headphones through your PC’s headphone output. Not the most optimal situation.
Also, if you get invited to play at a friends house or something, you are up the proverbial “sh*t-creek”. You are not gonna tote your entire PC setup with you and hooking up that little stereo mini-jack output to some more serious house-party ready speakers is not gonna be fun either, let alone the limitations of having your headphone not hooked up to your controller (which, btw, is what you are considering, not a mixer 😛 ) but to your PC.
I personally would not invest any money into a controller without a sound card in this day and age anymore. And since you mentioned future upgrade paths, the Mixtrack is probably not gonna give you much resale value.
The MC2000 (Denon) that is mentioned is one of our favorite Serato beginner controllers. It is good enough to last you past your first few steps into DJ land and will serve you well to the point of upgrading. There are plenty around used and since the Denon’s are built like tanks (even the MC2000) and it supports Serato intro too (just download for free, install and play away), picking one up second hand could be a good choice too. Worth looking into, I’d say.
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