Monitors vs. Mix...Help?

[Sarif-One]

So recently in setting up my home studio I purchased a pair of M-Audio BX8's. I'm very happy with the sound they are providing me, and at school our main audio lab's monitors I believe were KRK Exposé E8x's (Definately KRK at the very least) which I absolutely hated. (No low end clarity at all, a non existant sweet spot...)

At any rate, the project I set up the studio for involves a series of 11 mixes recently recorded at this great little studio in Mass. My job is, *tada* to mix the raw recordings. Genre is Collegiate A Cappella. So I've gotten setup in a little Protools LE system with above mentioned monitors and everything has been sounding wonderful, the BX8's are faithfully reproducing everything in wonderful stereo reproduction, the frequency ranges seem well defined (apart from a little ear fatigue thanks to the high end and proximity to me relative to volume...)

But then came my test, real world sound application.

I plugged those mixes into a few crappy speakers and some headphones. Through the headphones everything sounded dead on with what the monitors had been playing, all very well defined.
But...through my cheap consumer level 2.1 system, the mixes were completely off! The highs were almost completely washed out, the lows had no punch and I was left with a muddy mid section that sounded nothing like it should have.

So I thought...try some more speakers. A pair of really cheap "got these free with a laptop" speakers faithfully reproduced my mixes. And I began wondering what the deal was, so I sent the mixes out to everyone. Some people thought they sounded great and hearing them they were dead on. Others had that mid-rumbly-crap that I had gotten on my first consumer test.

What's the problem?!?
Do I have my speakers set up in a way that I'm mispercieving what I'm hearing? Do some speakers just suck that way? Why is there such a dramatic difference in playback from place to place?

Finally...how can I fix it? Meep...

[Sword9]

A good ME would really help your mixes I think, and would probably be able to nail down your problem for you.

[AVare]

A good ME would really help your mixes I think, and would probably be able to nail down your problem for you.

ME?

[Sword9]

Mastering Engineer

[Sarif-One]

We always get our mixes mastered after the fact. Though I've never actually heard the difference between our previous unmastered tracks and the masters, at least not on consumer level speakers.

Should I not worry about problems like that for now and simply mix as is and let my ME take care of that trouble?

[Sword9]

A good mastering engineer should work with the mix engineer and help refine mixes if they aren't right. If your ME doesn't do such a thing, you should talk to another maybe. Not all mastering guys are the same, and good ones are few and far between. PM me if you want to get in touch with my guy, he's great at this sort of thing.

[mixx]

you can virtually mix on ANY type speakers and get decent mixes..IF YOU ALWAYS USE CD REFERENCES [no not MP3's or MP4's..i have clients bring cd's with those recorded on it as references]..get CD's you like and know the sound of in the genre of music you are doing..level match them to your mix in progress and A/B constantly and you should have much better mixes..i like a variety..ones i like greatly, and ones that are justa little bass heavy, bright, middy..then when i feel i am "off" i put on the "outer fringe" mixes and see if i am off the relative scale and how much...plus when i am eq'ing i tend to listen alot louder than leveling...i let my ears decompress for a few hrs after roughing in or when i can come in the next day[ esp after 120 db rap sessions ..measured 4 feet BEHIND ME..by my tech]..and do all my rides at a low level