I need to add audio samples to a site I'm building. these samples are the main focus of the site and anyone that comes to the site NEEDS to be able to listen to them in some way or another.
I have used flash to do streaming samples in the past but I realize that not every person coming to this new site will have a flash player.
My question is : what format should I offer as an alternative to the flash format so that any visitor regardless of browser or platform can listen to them ? If needed I could offer two other alternatives but just one would be even better. Any suggestions ? Experience in that field ?

Thanks a lot!

PS: the sound samples were given to me in mp3 format

although not every person would have a flash player ... also you must keep in mind that not every person have a SPEAKER too! personally i DON'T ... even if i have ... i'm always turn it off during browsing the internet.

mp3 .. although it's great technology ... keep the file size small (compare to WAVE file) ... but i don't think we can stream MP3 without using flash.

you can always try use WAV ... but the problem is the file size is too big. you can use MIDI .. but i dont think MIDI satisfied you.

others are like using REAL Player .. but user must have installed real player to be able to play the song ...

hmmm ... i think it's better if not to put any song at all

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well the site is a business site for a voiceover artist so he WANTS audio samples of his work up there. I kind of have no other choice. I'm thinking putting three options:
flash streaming audio samples
real player audio samples
mp3 audio samples

Maybe that would cover the whole spectrum ?

take a look at the size of the file. if the WAV file is lower than 800 kb maybe you should put WAV file too .. 800 kb is quite big already for 56kers ... but its ok if its under 1 mb

flash streaming is good option. maybe you can put some reminder in your site to tell the user to download the flash player plug-in (flash player plug-in just take a minute to download).

thats all i could think. maybe others had any other idea ?

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instead of stream, why not ask user to download the sound sample and let them determine what kind of player that they want to use.

put a standard or "defacto standard" format on the site such as wav and mp3 and put some link to downloa the sample. downloading the sample will also help the prospective listener to listen to the sample again and again without having to stream it again and again from the website. he/she also can listen to the sample at his/her free time, during offline, and also play it to other people for feedback. I think this can increase the chance of the artist to be selected.