Q: Should I mix on high-end headphones or low-end monitors?

A little temporary acoustic treatment should allow you to use your existing monitors to judge panning and stereo imaging, so working around that aspect of headphone mixing shouldn't be too much of a concern. However, in your position I'd probably invest in an additional mono 'grotbox' (such as the Avantone Mixcube or Pyramid Triple P, perhaps), which should give a more reliable impression of the balance of the instruments than either the headphones or Minipods are likely to provide — it won't sound nice, but that's not the point of it — and will also confirm mono compatibility.

The bass problems are more difficult to work around, however. The HD600s are very good in this respect (especially if you make sure to reference your mix against commercial tracks), and could be supplemented with a software spectrum analyser (such as Roger Nichols' Inspector), but I'd still advise checking the low-end response somewhere else if possible. Even spending lots of money on new monitors won't help you here, if your room sounds rubbish at the low end. If you can't check mixes elsewhere, sources with mainly high-frequency and mid-range content, such as guitars, vocals and drum overheads, can be high-pass filtered. Try, also, to keep a tight grip on the dynamics of remaining low frequencies. For more headphone mixing tips, see the 'Mixing On Headphones' feature in SOS January 2007, which includes links to plug-ins that simulate loudspeaker listening on headphones.  0