Where should I plug my studio monitors in for MASTERING (w/ T-Racks)

I have a G3 Mac I leave Pro Tools LE closed, and my T-Racks master sound is going through the 001 to get to my studio monitors... Right now I have them plugged into the Main Outs of the 001...However I notice that While mastering, the sound is awesome and I'm so so happy w/ the sound T-Racks is giving me....(Not burned yet...) BUT when I burn it to CD, the sound is really bad.....Volume is low, and EQ doesn't sound the same....Really dissapointing.... I posted on the homerecording.com website (mixing and mastering) and the advice they gave me was to get a dedicated sound card and run T-Racks through that...The person told me not to run the sound through the 001 because it doesnt give me a true response of what the song will sound like... How are you guys doing it? Do I need to buy a sound card for mastering or is there any other way? I'm broke so any good news is appreciated..... Trash Man

mastering is an art form. it is not something you can learn fast. there are no quick fixes in mastering. every mistake you made along the recording journey shows up here. first rule in modern mastering: if you like it then it's right. the problem may lie in the fact that our ears have become accustomed to over-compressed, over-processed, upper 6db smashed cd's. these simply do not sound good. i don't care what anybody else says; you need HEADROOM. at least 9db. some engineers in the real world have started to realize this, and i have numorous recordings that reflect this. the needles dip down to -9db in the quiet parts. anyway; check the simple stuff first. what cd burner, what burning software, where are levels: peak/nominal(average) what type of eq'ing are you doing/ how many hours do you spend working with the completed material? what are you playing it on that sounds bad?

trashman, Did you try contacting t-racks or Illio (they distribute it in the U.S...) I'd like to learn what you found out. DB