BTW, I emailed the Peak to ask about the player problem -- their PD got back to me within the hour (!) and said "we switched the encoding algorithm for the main stream from MP3 to HE-AACv1 (AACplus v1.) It’s the almost latest and greatest and it sounds fabulous – so much better than MP3. Here’s a wiki link to learn more about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Efficiency_Advanced_Audio_Coding "
gobbledygook to me, but the upshot is that (like my problems with The Sound and The Drive), a Flash upgrade is needed, which i can't do here at work. So he gave me several alternate links, one of which actually works, tho' it's an old one that may disappear at some point. But check this out -- the WMP link I've been using for ages was something he was paying for OUT OF HIS OWN POCKET for the past 3 years -- $20 a month, and he finally had to let it lapse. What a guy!
Very impressive, considering that the Sound and the Drive never got back to me when I asked for an alternate link to their streams.