Mark Sullivan offers his take on how to make an NPR quality podcast over at Tech Hive:

Podcasting shares a lot in common with broadcasting. Content is obviously the most important element, but people won’t listen to the content if the sound quality is bad. And they’ll listen longer and more often if the sound quality is really good.

I went on a quest to find out if it’s possible to achieve NPR-level sound quality in a podcast you make at home. Working under the premise that no one piece of gear could cost more than $1000, I set about trying to assemble the equipment I thought would give me the best chance of sounding like such names as Bob Edwards or Corey Flintoff.

His focus is on three tools: mic, preamp and analog-to-digital audio interface.