Open Standard For Recording Compressed Voice?

john napiorkowski asks: "I do a lot of voice recording and have been using realaudio, which distributes 'free beer' tools for the job. However, I am greatly concerned by this reliance on such a proprietary tool; is there an open standard, free software replacement available? I have tried MP3, but it doesn't sound remotely as good as realaudio for voice recording at very high compression levels. Fifteen minutes of voice compressed with realaudio is under a meg and sounds almost exactly like the original, while MP3 sounds very poor to get the file that size."