Top manufacturers!

Aragon, by far. The best customer service in the business, bar none..

Atma-Sphere, Soundlab, Purist Audio, Thiel, Conrad Johnson, Eminent Technologies. I'm sure there are more but all of the above have always been nothing short of steller when it came to information (honest) and service, not to mention some of the better gear made.

Audio Research, Mark Levinson, and Theta without restriction. Restricted to price points, Magnepan and Grado are very worthy. I agree with the earlier post that Pass is a great product, but don't think the brand has been around long enough for purposes of the present question.

I would agree with the above but Vandersteen and Thiel were left out. These companies have been around a very long time and consistently offer good products. Vandersteen especially offers excellent value for the money spent. ARC also offers cutting edge products, dependability, solid engineering, product support for all products ever manufactured. I still think their D series amps and SP series pre-amps compete with the best I have heard in the past 10 years and they stopped being manufactured over 10 years ago. Market acceptance of a product year in and out is the real indicator of how good a product is. The above products fit that bill.

Look also to top distributors to find top products. Two that I can recommend without hesitation are Musical Surroudings and Axiss Distributing, Inc. Both of these companies sell great products, have a network of dedicated retailers and stand behind their gear. Musical Surroundings, among other brands, distributes or imports: Basis (turntables); Graham Engineering(tonearms); Koetsu & Benz Micro (phono cartridges); and, Aesthetix (tubed phono stages. Axiss imports, for example: Accuphase (full line of solid state electronics); AirTight (tubed amps and pre's); and, German Physics (speakers). Two manufacturers which have provided me with exemplary personal service and consistently come up with innovative and highly-regarded products are Avolon Acoustics (speakers) and Jeff Rowland Design Group ( solid state amps and pre's). Even if you are just getting started in the high-end (I've been at it for more than 25 years), go with the best manufacturers, even if you can afford only their "entry-level" gear. Don't settle for mid-fi under any circumstances; you're much better served by buying older "classics" at used prices on this web site or from used high-end dealers. Of course, these are just my opinions. I could be wrong.