I heard a lot of things about signal degradation when doing internal mixdowns in DAWs. Up until now, it's what I have always done, but I started getting really interested in finding out what other options I have.

The equipment I have isn't very high quality. All I got at this point is a Digi001 and a Mackie board w/the new generation of preamps. I don't have outboard pres/compressors, and I do 100% of my mixing withing the recording software.

Question #1: Considering the equipment I have, is it worth for me to start doing submixes into the Mackie and mix them down to DAT?

In other words: based on pure speculation (and hopefully y'all's experience of course!) and all other variables being equal, is there reason to think that the mix will sound better doing it this way than bouncing the mix internally? I don't exactly have $2500 for the "Dangerous2-bus." :o

I could go ahead and try it without asking and check for myself, but this isn't about being lazy - I am just in the middle of something else and I'd like to get some feedback first...

I am also in the particular situation where I am in charge of "mastering" the projects I record in my own studio (either that or no "mastering" at all for 99% of my clients). I do the mastering either in Spark or in PTLE, so...I'd need to go back into the DAW. If coming from the DAT player I could do an SPDIF transfer...

Question #2: Considering that I need to go back into my DAW for the CD preparation of the album, is the whole 16bit thing going to throw me off a big deal?

Thank for the feedback in advance!

Juergen