Hi, I wrote my private alarm_clock using repeated .wav files to announce that (1) the clock started and (2) the specified time had elapsed. For (1), which is too protracted: 3.times do |i| system "wv_player.exe", DING sleep 0.2i end For (2), which works fine for my purposes: while true system "wv_player.exe", ALARM_BELL sleep 1 end The two constants are defined: ALARM_BELL = ENV["WINDIR"] + "\\Media\\chimes.wav" DING = ENV["WINDIR"] + "\\Media\\ding.wav" Is there away to play a few DINGs faster? If not, I'll post on a Windows site to get a suggestion for something better to feed to Windows Wave Player or maybe Windows Media Player. I'm running WinXP-Pro/SP2, Ruby 1.8.2-15, Rails 1.1.6. TIA, Richard