Behringer's Podcastudio bundles all the software and hardware you need to produce podcasts on a PC or Mac.

The hardware includes a five-channel Xenyx 502 mixer, with a UCA200 interface to link it to a USB2 port.

You also get a pair of HPM1000 headphones and a deskstand with an XM8500 dynamic cardroid microphone that should prove robust as well as providing good audio quality.

All this is packaged like a toy, presumably to attract sales at Christmas. Unfortunately this approach does not extend to the documentation that tends to assume you already know a lot about what you are buying.

You are, for instance, advised to stick the ASIO2KS driver in the System32 folder, which is fine if you know where this is (it sits in the Windows directory). At another point you are told to 'adjust the input and output levels accordingly', with no hint of what 'accordingly' means.

Still there is little in the package to daunt anyone with some technical knowledge, and despite the packaging this is serious equipment that can produce professional results.

The bundled software is all freely available online: Audacity for podcasting, the Krystal Audio Engine that lets you plug in VST inputs, Podifier for uploading podcasts, and Juice and Podnova for receiving them. You'd be hard put to buy equivalent hardware at a better price.

The only caveat is that the box says the kit can be used for recording music, which is true up to a point. The mixer has two stereo inputs and one XLR mono, and the UCA200 lacks a Midi port; so if your musical ambitions run beyond basic, it's best to go for a higher specification.