Hello,

I am looking for some advice. I do exclusively location recording (church choirs, school concerts, that sort of thing). My "studio" is simply a room in my house that I have optimized for critical listening and mixing. Given I still have my day job, and limited space, anything I can do to be more efficient (both less time and taking up less room) is of interest to me.

I'll be using a laptop with RME fireface. I am looking for ways to minimize the time it takes to get my mobile rig together, and it occurred to me I could keep my mobile rack (fireface, pres etc.) stored in the closet while mixing, *if* I could get a high quality, stereo D/A converter for my laptop. Ideally, it would not have a breakout box but just a good stereo out jack. As I do all my mixing "in the box," I don't need the multiple outs of the fireface - stereo is just fine. I could run the stereo outs directly to my powered monitors for a very compact mixing system.

Alternatively (and this may be a *very* bad idea) I was wondering if the D/A conversion on a high-quality home stereo receiver (Harmon Kardon) would be an alternative to consider? My stereo is already in the room, so I was thinking of running S/PDIF out of my laptop's sound card, into the receiver's digital ins, and then use its unamplified, analog outs to feed my monitors. But, I am not sure how a good receiver's D/A conversion compares to a high-endcard like the fireface.

I appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.

Dave