Don't really buy into this fandom and realistically most of the audio companies listed are working on stuff way too "simple" to catch my interest so I am loathe to pick individuals. But, if I had to make a choice, I would take Burr-Brown and ADI in their haydays of converter design, with Toole at the National Research Council in Canada, Fraunhofer Institute when they were developing MP3 and working on AAC, heck I would take BOSE when they were developing the original acoustics for the Vette over most of the choices.
