How to Play Sound Clips On the Web
With a Web sound tool, you can listen to presidential speeches, favorite tunes, radio broadcasts and more.
The two most common sound formats are WAV and AU. Installing both tools will let you hear most sounds on the Web. You might also want to get the Real Audio Player to listen in on Web broadcasts. To install a tool, find it in the "tool box" and click on your computer model.
Which Tool Should I Use?
WAV and AU formats are used most frequently, and Web publishers will often provide sound clips in both. If you install both tools, you'll cover all your bases. To tell what format a sound is in on a Web page just look for WAV or AU in or near its title.
Use the Real Audio Player as the need arises. You may not use it frequently, but it's a good thing to have on hand when you need it. Remember: Real Audio allows you to hear live broadcasts. It could conceivably take just as long for to download and install the player as it would to listen to the live event that you want to virtually attend.
Real Audio files are commonly designated by "RA," "RAM" or simply "Real Audio" in their titles.
How Do I Recognize a Sound Clip on WashingtonPost.com?
On WashingtonPost.com, any link to a sound clip is preceded by a musical notes icon. For example:
 Listen to a piccolo (AU, 81K)
The information in parentheses tells you what format the sound is in (WAV, AU or RA) and how large it is in kilobytes (K). Sounds we produce will always be well under 100K to be accessible with modems, but links to sounds on other sites may be longer.
Because Real Audio files play as they download, they are not given a size.
Wav/AU for:
 Windows 95
Windows 3.1
Macintosh
Real Audio: Follow this tutorial for all platforms.
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