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.