So i'm trying to play sound at a player when they die using 

Minecraft.getMinecraft().getSoundHandler().playSound(sound);

but it only plays at the players location, so if they for example fall into the void and die, the sound plays in the void, so they can't hear it.

How can i play a sound without it playing at the players location?

There are actually a lot of different methods for playing sounds and they also have different behavior depending on whether they called on the server or client. Here is some official documentation to help sort it out: https://mcforge.readthedocs.io/en/latest/effects/sounds/#playing-sounds