For my own web site, I find Apple Quicktime (.mov) format from
www.apple.com suits my needs very well.  PC users will need the pro
version ($29.99) but I think Mac users can convert files using the eval
version.  I record with CoolEdit or whatever in .aif or .wav format and
compress using "QDesign Music" on 24-bit.  I've had 600K sound files and
gotten them down to 89K Quicktime movie files.  It takes a while to
compress, but it's worth it.

You can also convert MIDI files to Quicktime movies easily.  As a web
designer, that way you have full control over what your listener hears and
you don't leave anything up to his soundcard.  It creates a QT Movie from
the MIDI data using the patches from (I think) the Roland SC55 Sound 
Canvas, which is a decent general purpose tone generator, IMHO.

They're also handy for embedding in a web page.  You can actually embed a
few on a page and click on them to play them simultaneously, which allows
for some pretty nifty interactive web design if you're into that sort of
thing.  

I did one Csound project that I compressed with Quicktime, and it's on my
web site. I can see how maybe the loss in compression might bother some
people, particularly with really intense stuff.  But for acoustic things
and I'm sure a good bit of electronic music, I think Quicktime is pretty
darn good.  Excuse me if I sound like a commercial.

Come to think of it, did Apple design or at least assist with the design
of MP3 format?  I think I heard somewhere that they were involved and that
MP3 uses a lot of the same compression algorithms as Quicktime Movie
format.  Anybody know more about this?

				Kevin Gallager, kgallagh@astro.temple.edu
				Web - http://astro.temple.edu/~kgallagh