Today while doing a bit of research regarding https://trac.xiph.org/ticket/1498
I found out another limitation of the default audio renderer in DirectShow.
The DirectSound audio renderer cannot play 192KHz, 24 bit audio samples. This behaviour was present on Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1.
To my surprise Windows 7 (build 7000) doesn't have this limitation, Windows Media Player 12 was able to play the 192Khz 24bit sample FLAC file from Linn Records
Windows Media Player 12 also knows about Ogg Vorbis metadata, which came as a surprise as well.
If somebody will ask me why he/she should upgrade to Windows 7 now I now what to answer :)