SLuiCe said:
And you're more than welcome to hijack my thread with that sort of discussion. 
If it leads to learning, I'm into it...
I doubt anybody'll learn anything from this, but I'll throw in my complete agreement with the cheapie listen advice. I've been recording about 6 months longer than Sluice, soooooo, I'm new, lol. Anyway, here's what I've found:
1.
Decent monitors - have helped me a lot...I don't think it's for the reasons that monitors are SUPPOSED to help you, though. It's just that since the moment I got them, I started listening to a lot of commercial stuff on them for reference, and I think it forced me to get used to them really fast. They don't respond below 20Hz, so they're not good for picking out the rumble.
2.
Headphones - are great for catching hiss and pops. They're also helpful to me because volume is not an obstacle, lol, so they are slightly more helpful for spotting the subsonic issues. They suck for catching pitch problems...and for panning. At high volume, I think they're better at picking up sibilance, because it's physically painful, lol...my monitors tend to soften those brain darts too much. Yeah, I still have ass-loads of sibilance, but at least I know it, lol.
3.
My $35 Jambox - Has been sitting on top of my computer for the past 4 or 5 mixes. I've routed one of the outputs of my soundcard to this thing (not stereo), so it gives a mono send to exactly two crappy speakers. Unbelievably, it's better at catching low mid problems than anything else I have, lol. Basically, if my vocal is not cutting through on THAT thing, then the mix is too muddy. And, the obvious bonus, the mono send picks up phase issues, although I didn't know what those were until very recently, lol.
4.
My car - Always the last test, and obviously, I can't mix with it, lol. I imagine a universe where I have a sound treated room with speakers that match the space as well as those in my car...this would eliminate that maddening frustration that happens when I pop the CD in the car for the first time. AAAARRRGGGHHHHH...IT SOUNDS LIKE SHIT!!!! The car is where I pick up my subsonic problems.
And while it should have been obvious to me earlier, it was Sluice's comment in one of my threads awhile back about listening on as many different systems as possible that got me started on the whole jambox/headphones/monitors thing. The only drawback is that the source for all 3 is still the same (my computer), so the car is still a necessity... I think people (at least, those of us recording on computers) forget sometimes that their computer has it's own EQ, which totally varies from machine to machine...and dialing THAT in is every bit as important as getting used to monitors. My dumb ass was reminded of this recently when I fried a computer that I've been recording on for a long time...I had the EQ on that computer set to playback LESS bass, b/c I know that I tend to not have enough low end in my mixes, so it forces me to ...blah blah blah...
I'm done.
..........