Audio on the web is tricky. The tag is gaining popularity and support, but it is often slow for things that demand quick response (such as games) and on some systems has weak support for playing multiple sounds at once (like in games) . SoundManager2 is comprehensive and awesome (a js/Flash library that falls back to the tag if it has to) but the lag is notable, especially on Chrome. Finally, WebKit audio is terrific — on the browsers that support it.