The audio samples on this site use Real Audio encoding. I've used 16kbps, which is a very low bit rate; I initially used it for two reasons, one being enabling streaming over dial-up connections, and the second being the fact that I wanted the sounds to be just appetizers, not substitutes for the full blown quality tracks on CD or on vinyl. The first reason is no longer very relevant, but the second one is.
Alas, Real Network's latest versions do not support this format anymore. So if you've upgraded your Real Player over the past couple of years, chances are you get an error message when trying to play the sounds on this site.
There are two ways to work around this:
1. Download an older version of Real Player. Real Networks do offer a legacy software archive, where versions 4 to 8 can be downloaded; as far as I've checked, versions 4 to 8 do support the bit rate I use.
If you do that, remove the current (later) version of Real Player, and install the older version.
Once you've installed the older version, you will be prompted to upgrade to the latest version, but you may disregard this prompt.
2. Download Real Alternative (search for it, there are several download sites). You may want to read the Wikipedia article about it, and you should be aware of its limitations. From what I understand, it won't play the streaming sounds on this site, but will play the sounds once you download them; which should not be a problem since most files are just 200KB to 300KB, and should download within a couple of seconds.
Will I ever change the format of the sounds to, say, mp3s? I probably should, but I need to get a batch process to convert the 1000+ files, and I don't know of a command line program that can do this; if you do, drop me a line. If I do this, the sounds will still be 16kbps, which is OK, since, as mentioned above, I don't want to provide high quality sounds.
The Soul of the Net's sound samples are offered in two formats:
streaming - you listen while you receive. After a short "buffering" period, in which your computer receives the first few seconds of the song, you will start to hear the music. There's nothing saved on your computer's disk. At the sound sample's end, it vanishes like the proverbial puff of smoke.
downloading - you save the file to your disk, and it will play only once downloaded. Actually, with connections getting faster all the time, the difference between streaming and downloading these files, which are quite small, is becoming less and less noticeable; but I haven't gotten around to removing the distinction on most of the site's pages.
The sound samples on this site are given in order to promote the music. If you like a sound sample and need help in obtaining the record/CD, drop me a line.