Sound on the Internet is becoming increasingly commonplace. You need to have a sound card and the right software in order to take advantage of what is out there.

Some computers have up to three speakers in them, a PC speaker (for general warning and alert tones), a speaker on a modem (so you know what happens when your computer is calling a number) and a sound card speaker. It is important that you know which is which when determining whether your computer can play digital music and sounds.

The internal speaker and modem speaker should not be confused with a sound card. Sound cards typically allow a wide range of sounds including digitally saved music like that found on compact disks.

Digitally saved music can be saved in a variety of formats with the most common being .wav, .mid, .rmi, .aif, .au and .snd.

Each of these formats must have a corresponding sound player in order to hear the music in that format.

If you have Windows 95 loaded then you may have Microsoft ActiveMovie 1.0 already installed on your system. If you downloaded Internet Explorer 4.0, Preview 2 then you have ActiveMovie 2.0 (currently that is the only way to get this newer version).

ActiveMovie, despite the name, supports both sound and video formats, is very quick to start and can play .mov, aif and other sound formats. If you need to reinstall ActiveMovie, go to Download.Com and type "activemovie" in the search blank.

If you don't already have a graphics viewer and you want the very best, try Multimedia Xplorer, a "powerful 32-bit application (Windows 95/NT 4.0) for handling most types of multimedia files including images, sounds, videos and icons." This all-in-one program has a list of features too long to include here. It is free to try for 30 days and then you need to register it for a modest $20.00.

While Multimedia Xplorer is great if you have Windows 95, it won't help if you have Windows 3.1. For that, try Waveform Hold and Modify (WHAM).

WHAM is exclusively sound oriented and allows some actual modification of audio files. Like Multimedia Xplorer and most good software, WHAM can be found on ZDNet's Hotfiles and costs $25.00 if you decide to keep it after the 30 day trial.

Macintosh users will want to check the Macworld Software Collection for their software needs. The best audio application, SoundApp FAT, can be found here.

SoundApp FAT has support for all the major sound formats and is freeware (meaning it doesn't cost anything) You will need System 7 or later to run this program.

Unlike standard sound files which must first be completely downloaded and saved to your computer before playing, streaming audio, most notably RealAudio (now packaged as RealPlayer) allows files to be played as they are being transferred.

This advance means that you can start listening to entire concerts in a matter of a few seconds rather than waiting hours for them to download.

With RealPlayer, you can experience the thrill of live audio and video events on sites like LiveConcerts.Com without the cost of an overpriced ticket.

Radio stations and "jukeboxes" from all over the world broadcast 24 hours a day to anyone with the free RealPlayer audio add-on (commonly called a Web browser plug-in).

With so much quality sound available for free on the Internet, if you haven't purchased a sound card and installed a good player, you may be missing out on a ample audio opportunity.