Thanks for all the responses guys, I'm using less than adequate computer speakers and my headphones for monitoring. I'm sure I can't get a true feel for how my track will sound on a loud system without actually playing it on a loud system. It sounds good and well balanced to me through my headphones but I'm gonna take it to a friend's house with a good system and see if I hear any muddiness or bass problems.

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Originally posted by ADSR Thanks for all the responses guys, I'm using less than adequate computer speakers and my headphones for monitoring. I'm sure I can't get a true feel for how my track will sound on a loud system without actually playing it on a loud system. It sounds good and well balanced to me through my headphones but I'm gonna take it to a friend's house with a good system and see if I hear any muddiness or bass problems.

you can get a pretty good feel of your track with rather cheap hifi system. a decent used rotel amp can cost you 100 euro (at least mine was ) and bookshelf speakers like mission m32 (52 hz-20 khz) cost 125 GBP brand new.
you should NEVER mix with your headphones, because the stereo separation is exaggerated on them, and bass response is completely inadequate. maybe you can use them for detecting muddiness, but not for setting correct balance of highs and lows in your mix.
and definitely take your mixes to your friend's and check the mix in both moderate and high level.

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Originally posted by Derivative on the mp3 issue. heh, i use musicmatch jukebox to rip all my cds to mp3 and they all have the same kind of drop off after like 16,000 hz. i guess i should use some other app to rip. its just MMJ is so quick and easy. mwaha

i reccomend you use EAC+LAME. EAC is a freeware ripper available from www.exactaudiocopy.de, and LAME is, as i am sure you already know, a freeware mp3 encoder/decoder. it is best to get the distribution with a GUI, like EasyLame (http://www.mpex.net/en/software/download/easylame.html). then you can be sure that you get the best quality mp3s.