I have found myself gravitating not so much to the brands that get mentioned the most often, but the ones which get mentioned enough that I realized there was something of quality there. Add to that that there is very little debate about these less-mentioned but not obscure brands and that indicates -- to me -- that there is something flying "under the radar."
Examples:
Salk, Fritz, Silverline in speakers (as opposed to the biggies, such as Focal); Audio Mirror Tubador or Mojo DACs; deHavilland, Herron, Supratek for preamps; Allnic, Atmasphere, Quicksilver for amps.
These are just examples, but they hit a sweet spot of value -- there's not much chance it's *just* their name getting them touted by people. (Not that, say, Focal fans are only taken in by the name, of course, but some really do get swamped by the marketing/buzz around brands with big distributions.)