Don't you love when you have a problem in your head for weeks (or months) and then one day you're reading through RSS links and discover someone has built a tool that solves your problem? And released it for free with a BSD license? Nice.

SoundManager 2:

is a Javascript Sound API which talks to Flash, effectively mapping most of Flash 8's native sound capabilities to Javascript. It enables web developers and front-end engineers to programmatically control sound in a cross-browser/platform way, using a language they already know.