Audio software for creating high quality podcasts

If you're going for the highest quality possible in a podcast (and I realize not everyone needs or wants the highest quality), I’d suggest using several software programs. We use Sony Sound Forge for recording and editing our voice, Adobe Audition for “painting out” extraneous noise, and Cockos Reaper for compression (we use the “Smile” setting ReaXcomp plug-in). And finally, we use Sony Vegas Pro for mixing our voice with a podcast intro, outro and short music transitions. Vegas Pro has a fairly low learning curve and there are some nice plug-ins you can use to enhance the sound quality. We use PreSonus Firepod for our equipment (and Presonus Firebox when we’re traveling) because we like to record at 88kHz 32bit (then downsample our podcast to a 128 MP3 file). Of course, once you record, edit, and mix a podcast, then the real fun begins. Promoting it.