Audio software for Mac: UPDATED below the fold

General request to megamachanics (readers of this blog):

Have any of you opinions on freeware or shareware audio programs for the Mac (or Linux ones which can be ported to Mac Os X 10.4 Intel)?

Disederata (desired functionality): capturing audio streams to .mp3 files, turning microphone input into .mp3 files, converting any formats (.ogg for instance) to .mp3.

Freeware would be prefered, but if there is a shareware program out there that performs several functions, or performs one function particularly well, it would be worth consideration.

Over the next several days, I will be trying a few out myself and offer my reactions.

Audio Recorder for Mac does a decent job of recording input from the microphone into .mp3 and is free.

Next goal: software for capturing the stream coming through the sound card to .mp3.

I ended up downloading, installing and purchasing Audio Hijack Pro for capturing streams and creating podcasts.  At $32, I think it’s a bargain for what it does.

Thanks for Tudsy for suggesting the very fine freeware Audacity.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t have all functionality I need in the Mac version.

What would still be nice to find is a free or reasonably priced program that would convert printed text to streams or podcasts, similar to Acrobat Reader’s “read out loud” feature, but with quality high enough that would be bearable.   Megamechanics encouraged to send in their suggestions in exchange for the potential high honor of being thanked by name (or nom de plume) on this blog and, in cases of true merit, commendation as a Defender of the Technate, First Class.