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Before Sony was an evil fucking corporation it was an awesome fucking corporation. You bought Sony if you wanted an excellent product.

I remember. They used to have miniDisc players that had some of the first AD/DA audio converters at the consumer level. I used to buy them at garage sales and use them to make music using early versions of ProTools.

Also, they had some nice multiband radios and a field recorder called the TCD5M that was superb. When I did sound for films I used mine all the time. A lot of pros used it to replace the Nagra recorders. That's how good it was.

http://transom.org/2005/sony-t...

For podcast books there's Podiobooks which has a number of books on offer, both new and public domain.

For comedy sketch and short story, there's Firesign Theatre where you can browse the comedy albums (they've been making them for 40 years) and from each album download sample tracks. They also have a podcast.

For podcast short story and essay, there's The Seanachai. Patrick Mclean comes from advertising, I think, so he has some good writing chops. He has a series called "How to Succeed in Evil without really Trying." It's very funny.

And, pants down, the best monologist in the business is Joe Frank. A free membership on his site allows you to stream a number of full-length shows.

There's also Transom.org where hopeful producers submit stuff for NPR-type program directors to peruse. Much of it is downloadable, and it includes fiction.

Lastly, I shamelessy plug myself. Of course, if I could actually shamelessly plug myself and record it on podcast, I would have a lot more listeners. Pferdzwackur's Tin Man is exactly what the original post was asking for. Original serial fiction, with bells and whistles attached.

The Jean Shepherd Archive has hundreds of hours of unrestricted downloadable audio collected by fans over the years:
http://shep-archives.com/

Some other sources of unrestricted material:

Transom public radio workshop/showcase:
http://www.transom.org/

Archive.org has some good audio.
http://www.archive.org/

Benjamin Walker's site:
http://toeradio.org/

Cook'd and Bomb'd - Chris Morris site. Hunt around for mirrors that have archived radio programs. (The Blue Jam series is my personal favorite.)
http://chilled.cream.org/

If you don't mind downloading material that's not supposed to be available for download (most easily done using mplayer, I find), then there are plenty of radio offerings. I'm a public radio junkie, and usually stock up on a few dozen shows before taking a long trip. Among my favorites:

Joe Frank. The greatest radio artist in the history of, well, radio artistry. (Subscription costs $10/mo, but is well worth it.)
http://joefrank.com/

This American Life. (free)
http://thislife.org/

Fresh Air. (free, but a pain in the ass to navigate)
http://freshair.npr.org/

Oh well, fuckit. Peercasting is DOA, there's no worthwhile content.

You know... You don't have to rely on the large media conglomerates for content. Almost anybody can learn to play music. Almost anybody can learn how to use a video camera and software to make TV shows or movies. You can too.

Wait... What's that I hear? You don't want to listen to the kids down the street who can barely play their instruments and their crappy garage band? You don't want to watch the fat guy across the way with the digicam and delusions of being an auteur? OK. Fine with me. You're free to enjoy Britney Spear's latest opus. Just don't declare everyone else's content as being not worthwhile just because you don't like it.

Oh, and if you want to hear some amateurs doing really terriffic radio then check out Transom. It is possible for non-mainstream media to produce "worthwhile" content.

Aside from looking for deals on E-bay, you'll find that the features you want are not availble at a consumer level.

High end mindisc recorders allow digital dubbing, but not consumer models. An excellent source of information is here.

By the way, minidisc does not use DRM, it just doesn't have a digital line out jack.

In broadcast circles a lot of people are moving to various flash media units, and seem quite happy with them. These tend to be "pro" units, with XLR mic jacks and digital in and out.

You can also check out transom.org for advice on recorders.

This sounds exactly like what's been happening for ages over at Transom

Public Radio International backs a similar website called Transom.org that offers the same kind of idea exchange and exposure to producers of shows such as This American Life.

It's also been around for a while.