It's a good mindset, not to buy twice.
I use various Yamaha mixers from the MG line at work for conferences, i use them together with wireless mics and pa-speakers, etc... they sound ok, really couldn't complain much, but they don't sound "impressive" or especially "nice".
When i first bought a mixer for private use, i got a mackie onyx 1640i, which to my ears, sounded much nicer compared to the yamahas i used at work. It wasn't night and day, but the preamps in the mackie did sound better, had nicer EQs and maybe the channels had a little less noise.
Now i bought a used midas venice mixer, and again it sounds nicer than the mackie, with better preamps (better preamps generally means you can overdrive them better without getting ugly distortion quick), better EQs, and definately a lot less noise on the channels.
Cheapest is the Yamaha, Mackie in the middle, Midas on top (i paid less for the midas than the mackie however, since i bought the mackie new, and the midas used). Like with most material things, if they are made equally good, the one with the more expensive components will sound/perform/last better.
Today i would probably get an allen&heath or soundcraft mixer instead of the mackie... it's a good mixer, but mine had a broken channel after two years and from what i read, the A&H and soundcraft contenders sound nice!
The midas is certainly another world. If you like to buy used, the venice series are somewhere between 1000-2000 bucks. You can get the new midas F-series for around 2000 bucks brand new, but those are made by behringer essentially (they bought midas), which i'm hesitant to trust (since they also produce cheap garbage products).
The ultimate question is: How "clean" do you like your mixer? It's not always a benefit... a little noise can be nice sometimes, especially for 90's Hip Hop.
There's many people who use old mackie mixers with SP1200s, especially in the house music scene i think people like how the preamps of the mackie mixers sound when you overdrive them a little... i must admit personally i noticed this too on the mackie onyx, you can't overdrive the preamps a lot, but there's a sweet spot that is real nice on drums (and other things)... it's not bad for oldschool Hip Hop sounding stuff either.
I would never want to go back to the mackie from the midas however, there is other ways to add noise...
If you would like a solid mixer that sounds decent and will last for some years to come, i'd recommend a mackie, A&H or soundcraft... always think like this no matter the brand: entry level = cheap and bad sound quality, mid level = solid and good sound, everything above is nice to have but not really needed to make good quality music.
Another question is if you want analogue or digital. I've heard good things about the yamaha digital mixers, and used a few for work that belonged to hotels, they sounded nice.
Good luck i guess...
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - R. D. Laing
