
Originally Posted by
tocsin
Mastering is more complex than making it sound good to your ears. Ideally, it should be about having your mix sound as good as you can make it while also sounding consistent on multiple different set ups. There's a good chance that a track you mix by ears only may sound quite different on other speaker setups. When I'm concerned, I generally give it a listen on my studio monitors, my headphones, my home stereo system, and then my car. If it sounds pretty much the same on all of the above and the parts I wanted to stand out do so on each, then I call it a day.