I have been doing some research, but I thought that I would at least pose the qustion here, what is the best sound card for playing non-compressed sound files (.wav)?

The $ 30 Behringer UCA-202 works well, and it works with Vista, it's plug and play, no fuss, no hassle. RCA in / out as well as optical output to other devices. USB 2.0 to your computer. Low measured distortion as well as good frequency response.

There aren't many suitable ones that work with Vista, any other operating system, there are a bunch of options. I am guessing you don't need DD 5.1, DTS output?

 I kind of like my Soundblaster Extreme audio, I run it under both Vista Ultimate 64 Bit and Ubuntu 9.04, it has the optical out to drive my receiver, and hey, it is probably the most standard of all souncard chips and works well under both Vista 64 and Ubuntu 64 Bit.

Thanks everyone for the help.

There are many levels of sound card value...

The least expensive I would consider for music is the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI and as an all around card the X-Fi Music/Gamer(great low cost cards).

Next up we move in quality...and price

MOTU 828mk3(really like mine)

and here we are in the purist ubber class...

RME Fireface 400(love mine,Made in Germany...top quality all around,the BWM M6 of sound cards)

lastly we have APOGEE's multi unit combos...more expensive tham nost speaker setups members of these forums own so...

i have found the turtle beach sound cards to be pretty good.  I dont use soundcards anymore as most of the time, onboard audio is more than enough.  In the end, just most drivers to worry about and upgrade but if i had to buy a soundcard, itd be turtle beach.

There are so many different cards that you can choose from, i wish i really understood all of the differences between cards and the different chips but i just havent wanted to put forth the effort to learn it.

 what is your application?