Pip Radish,
Re: Soundcloud

I agree the waveform thing is a bit of a gimmick but, as you say, it looks nice. I have found Soundcloud easy to use, it will accept a wide variety of formats and upload times are generally pretty quick. The interface is pretty clean and it does not seem to be plagued by adverts. If you make your tracks downloadable (and you have a choice), the download will be in the format you uploaded so you can use it to transfer material to others in high quality formats. The site converts your uploads to mp3 for playback on the site.

There are free and paid for accounts. The free version has a limit on uploads but the limit is not on disk space or number of files but on the total playing time. You get a total of 120 minutes playing time which I think is pretty good. If you want more time, you have to pay.

You can find the stuff I have uploaded here: http://soundcloud.com/tootlingeoff