XMPlay is my preferred player - but it's got quite an annoying snag: when pausing a song playing over WASAPI in Exclusive Mode, the audio device is still occupied by XMPlay. That's very hindering to daily workflow. The only way to release the device on XMPlay is by stopping playback completely, losing your play position. Other WASAPI in Exclusive Mode supporting players are able to do that, including mcool which also uses BASS library.
Thanks for considering.