XAudio is pretty easy to set up and use compared to the old DirectSound.  However, if you want something easy and portable then there are things like OpenAL or the still maintained OpenAL Soft.  Anything more powerful usually costs money.

On 25.9.2017 at 4:33 PM, the incredible smoker said:

How about windows XP ?

To go low-level on WinXP a try is to use Waveform WINAPI because it is built in while XAudio2 needs an extra install. I did use Waveform API in a toy project to record and playback Mic sounds and it worked

Ok, thanks, especially the part : it works.