There is an audio-on demand service for Internet (see RealAudio's home page for it). You are encouraged to read about the clients, servers, encoders, Getting the Best Sound Out of RealAudio, and other information they provide. If you have not already done so, you probably should download the appropriate client to your multimedia-capable computer (or use a lab system with it already installed).
RealAudio employs a great deal for compression, requiring about 3Mbytes for an hour of lecture. It will play back to 14.4K modems with satisfactory quality for speech, and reasonable quality for music over 28.8K modems. Final quality, however, depends largely upon the input source.
Please follow all the instructions, and try out each of the streams stored locally along with instructions. Those that were recorded at a distance, even with amplification before compression, seem less pleasant to listen to. Please also try a better sampling, found by Andy Wagliardo, from "XSO's South Florida Music" at http://www.xso.com/music/ which has good recording quality. Charles Atwood liked http://www.audionet.com/ and http://ww2.audionet.com/pub/books/zigg/metro1.ram
As you follow the directions given, you will help us with our test of RealAudio, using these local files, that is underway till March 1, the end of our current trial for running an evaluation copy of the RealAudio version 1 server on video.cs.vt.edu.
Our final request: Please send the URL for the best sounding RealAudio clip you find in the Internet. Hint: Start with the RealAudio home page mentioned above, or one of the pages mentioned above found by your peers.