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Re: apex couldn't initialize sound please make sure you have a sound playback device

courtesy of @xD1Nx

I've found a fix that worked for me:
As stated in Developer guide for redistributable version of XAudio 2.9, a version does exists for Windows 7, as a NuGet

https://www.nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.XAudio2.Redist/#readme-body-tab

So i grabbed the DDL from the "Microsoft.XAudio2.Redist" NuGet: download the ".nupkg" and rename it ".zip" to open it with your favorite archive manager.
The DLL is named "xaudio2_9redist.dll" and located in "build\native\release\bin\x64\".
Copy it in "C:\Windows\System32" as "xaudio2_9.dll" and launche APEX: it should now launch just fine.

This one worked for me, as above provided here by @xD1Nx