Minimalist

These players are build on the assumption that minimizing the use of system resources improves the sound quality.
Most of the time this is at the expense of the user interface.

cMP² = cMP + cPlay

cPlay is a minimalist audio player using the latest high quality SRC resampler (Best Sinc SNR 145.68db or 121.33db) or SoX (VHQ or HQ). cPlay's design offers state-of-the-art ASIO-only playback and caters for touch screen users.

 

cMP (cics Memory Player) is an open source audio construction. It describes how to build and configure a PC system costing around $1,000 (including a quality soundcard and case) that does not merely match but exceeds the performance of the very best CD transports.

 

Lots of information about this project on Audio Asylum.
Massive treats on cMP and cPlay.

Price: free, open source.

StealthAudioPlayer

StealthAudioPlayer is a minimalist GUI-less ASIO/WASAPI audio player for Windows,
which supports ASIO and Vista/Win7's new audio WASAPI in exclusive mode, and with "Pro Audio" priority.
It loads the whole audio file into memory before playing.
The main feature of this player is that it does not have neither GUI nor CLI interface.
All interactions are performed by running another instance of executable with specific parameters to Stop, FF, Next etc.
I intentionally avoid using GUI for this player, anything may influence the sound.

Started as a WAV/WASAPI player only, later other formats and ASIO where added.
This player has no interface at all.

Price: free

 

Signalyst HQPlayer

HQPlayer is a high-quality audio player for Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can bypass the operating system's software mixer and sample rate conversion. It also contains selectable high quality resampling and dithering/noise shaping algorithms, as well as a selectable convolution engine suitable for example room acoustics correction. Supported media types are CD, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, DSF and DSDIFF -files. Sound quality on some consumer hardware can also be improved by doing resampling to 48, 96 or 192 kHz native rate.

 

Price: EUR 99.00/USD 156.94

 

JPLAY

Puristic design provides transcendent quality

Jplay was built with only one goal in mind: optimal music reproduction. Its stripped-down, bare-bones playback engine fits completely inside CPU cache and can be used as stand-alone player or together with popular music management software: JRiver Media Center, iTunes, Foobar, mp3toys etc.

Price: EUR 99 single user.