Know the feeling. I used to experience that phenomenon back in the old days when taking a tape master to a mastering facility to cut the disc master for record production.
Most of those places were rectangular, low ceiling rooms, with standing waves galore ... hell, they were factories ...and the sound was awful to the point that, when monitoring the process, you often had to sit on both hands to resist the temptation to make adjustments to get it to sound like it did when mixing in the control room.
You really had to have the courage of your convictions, and the confidence that comes with experience to keep from second guessing yourself, and that it really did sound better than what you were then hearing.
A hard thing then to do when many thousands of dollars was riding on the outcome ... and doubly bad if the client insisted on being present.
They often left one of those sessions with tears in their eyes, looking at me as if I was a total idiot, undoubtedly thinking of all the money they had paid me that was now wasted. :)
Of course, the proof was in the pudding, and the outcome was always satisfying in the end.
Digital mastering is a whole different ball game ... best left to a new set of ears, in a different listening environment, with those ears experienced in the genre for which they are mastering and, most importantly, how the results obtained in that environment will _transfer_ accurately to the greatest number of speakers systems upon which the product will be played.
Too many bedroom wannabe's in that end of the business today, IMO.