I have the Yamaha N8 and Ithink for the money is a great buy, mine was £550 but soundcontrol were selling em for much cheaper recently!
Great sounding preamps, eq and reverb, indeed it is a pleaseure to own (for now!).
it comes with cubase 4 le which is a very nice sweetener, although it is limited in some ways, it would be perfect tool to use/learn. It made me want to upgrade and I picked up fullblown Cubase 4 for about £200 of Ebay!
Do it, spend yer money, its fun!
mB