Advice on audio streaming and download hosts

you could buy some hosting for those that want to dl the mp3 and then use something like mixcloud.com for the streaming / flash player part?

Mixcloud is good for streaming / embedding. Of course, there's no guarantee that they won't follow a similar path to Soundcloud and start charging at some point, which will present a problem if you've uploaded a lot of material by that point or heavily based your site design around the embedded player. (NOTE: I say this after only a quick glance at their FAQ. Maybe there has been a guarantee that they won't charge and I haven't seen it?).

Soundcloud really is nice. I think it's worth paying for.

Amazon s3 is a possible (paid) solution for direct downloads. You pay according to download activity, so you're not buying more storage / bandwidth than you need from month to month:

http://aws.amazon.com/s3

My label website is basically a Wordpress blog with the blog page removed.

http://csaf-records.com/

Wordpress is good because you can do a lot of the stuff you need directly through them e.g. register your URL. I also bought some nice cheap server space from them for posting MP3s of individual tracks. These can be posted as embedded players or direct links to the MP3 file (I use both).

For hosting larger files (full albums in .zip format, which Wordpress does not accept), I use box.net. I have the cheapest paid account that box offers and it's worked out really well for me so far.

I would also recommend Soundcloud (full disclosure: I did work for them for a bit), though the changes they made last year definitely made it less DJ set friendly. You could always just create a load of different accounts and use the minutes allowance of each one. Not sure how much they would frown upon that. Not ideal any way you look at it.

I know mnmlssgs use http://fairtilizer.com/ for their mix series and it does look pretty good. I can't see a clear breakdown of how many downloads / minutes / megabytes you get for free though. It seems unlikely that's it's unlimited but could be worth a shot.

I also recall that lower end spasm had something set up with http://archive.org which I think will host things for free in the interests of culture and that. It was kind of slow though and I have no idea how you get your stuff on it.

Setting up things with your own hosting etc etc would depend on what volume of stuff you want to upload. AWS is pretty easy to set up, and as Hint says you only pay for what you use.

Edit: If the files are <100mb then http://drop.io might be good too, they have some very cool features.