This paper discusses the benefits of exploiting 1) the principle of global-time-based coordination of distributed computing actions (TCoDA) and 2) a high-level component-/object-based programming approach in developing real-time embedded computing software. The benefits are discussed in the context of a concrete case study. A new major type of distributed multimedia processing applications, called Adaptive Distributed Sound Systems (ADSSs), is presented here to show the compelling nature of the TCoDA exploitation. High-quality ADSSs impose stringent real-time distributed computing requirements. They require a global-time base with precision better than 100 μs. For efficient implementation, the TMO programming scheme and associated tools are shown to be highly useful. In addition, a prototype TMO-based ADSS has been developed and its most important quality attributes have been empirically evaluated. The prototype ADSS has also turned out to be a cost-effective tool for assessing the quality of service of a TMO execution engine.