Monitors

Stay away from the Behringers. I had a friend who got 9 different ones, and no two were even close to matched. THey (Behringer) have a very bad rep for poor quality, cheap components and workmanship.

within that price range you should definately CHECK the Tannoy Reveal, too. best

Big floor monitors are not the way to go for your first set of speakers. You want a good nearfield that will nto be overly affected by your room. Those big speakers might be fine for listening in the living room, but unless your control room is the size of a decent living room space, they are not going to be very accurate, and will look pretty silly on top of your console.

Samson makes a device for the DAW mixer, with multiple i/o for montiroing, I think it's called the C-Control or somethin like that, and it's around $100. I've heard good things about it.