In article <Pine.NEB.4.30.0103150102320.356-100000@ismaelda.reinoud.kasbah> you write:
>i'm currently expirimenting with speakfreely on the Shark but i ran into
>trouble :( ...
>
>recording goed fine as does playing back BUT ... the two programs (mike
>and player) can't open /dev/audio at the same time ...

Invoke speakfreely using `sflaunch'. See the man page for details.
Alternatively, try pkgsrc/net/xspeakfree as a frontend.

Cheers, Steve