Searching the forums I found one thread about how just calling sound.play() can be a very expensive call - the response was about increasing bit rate on export.
But I am developing purely in actionscript and FlexBuilder so I looked for other solutions. Here is one pitfall to look out for: http://www.ghostwire.com/blog/archives/as3-fixing-the-lag-that-arises-when-playing-a-short-sound-effect/
But even after this I found my game’s frame rate could jump around quite a bit with sounds playing so if anyone has more tips for optimizing sound playback in games please post.
thanx
