In my opinion, to improve your home mastering:
1.Make your mixdowns @ 24 bit 44.1Khz...and master in 24bit.
1.1 listen to your favourite cds to get inspiration and a reference sound...
2.Use the spectrum analyser function in Steinberg Wavelab 4.0 or Spectra-lab also do a great analyser, to see what your favourite track is doing frequency wize and what you are doing to your mix...everything starts to sound beter with EQ until you bypass what you have done and realize the original was better...
3.use a good EQ, (sonalksis EQ, Waves, De-Vice'..(sorry, had to plug it!) and bypass often to hear the original
4. listen at low and high volume levels, in your car, in mono, headphones, pc speakers, in the other room...
5. don't work for more than 1 hour in one sitting, have regular ear breaks, never mix and master on the same day!
6.try to get your mix frequency range as flat as possible so all frequencies are represented equally and don't overcompress the natural dynamics of the music and voice (if you don't want to) why have all that high resolution 24bit etc..if you are going to reduce the dynamics in the end again anyhow???MAkes no sense.
7.use waves L2 ultramaximiser with an attenuation of about 6-12dB rather than an overall mix compressor(to get a hot master) and dither down to 44.1 16bit with the UV22 mastering plug-in by Apogee and finally...
8.after all that if you still don't like the result hand your work over to the pro who mastered your favourite commercial CD and pay the price...
goodluck, good mastering takes a lifetime to ....ahmmm...Master...
sayton
De-Vice'