Even with OpenOffice, I can never hear the sound.
Now, if you really, really want to hear whatever sound file is embedded, go buy
FILE JUICER. It extracts loads of things, and dealing with powerpoint files is one of those. It's $17.95, and be a bit more than you want to pay just to hear sound files, but it does work. You'll wind up with a folder with the jpgs, pngs, etc. A folder with the sound fil(es), and so on. You can then view the pictures through Preview, and play the sound file with iTunes.
Here's my interesting File Juicer story: I began using FJ several years ago. Dropped a powerpoint file on it, then went to look at all the pretty pictures. In the midst of the pics I found a porn shot.
Then I found another. Double
I asked Sneakers if he'd seen these files (he had viewed it in another program on his win machine at work). He'd not seen the porn slides. He asked his one friend and he'd not seen it either. Finally we ran it through a powerpoint viewer on a win machine and it didn’t show up. Strangest thing. This is how trojans and viruses can be inserted in stuff. I never ever play powerpoint files. I extract them, view the photos, play the wav file if I'm curious (usually not), and then trash the entire mess. Actually, I normally just trash the darn things and never extract, but I'm odd that way. And no comments from the peanut gallery.
Thank you Kimmer and XABD for your responses. I guess its no big deal. I don't think I'll pay for FJ just for this. I was just curious why...and if anyone else had the problem.