Top manufacturers!

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.

I'll ditto the recommendations of ARC, Levinson and Krell. Certainly these manufacturers have produced excellent products and have a good history of customer support. These are vendors are "solid", kind of the McIntosh of the last decade (even longer). At the more inexpensive side NAD and Adcom must be given credit for very good products and in use results over the years. Speaker maufacturers are much more taste dependent, but I repect products from Magnepan and Vandersteen. Magnepan (I have never owned a pair) has been near state of the art since the late seventies and are a great value. Vandersteen (I have never owned a pair) has consistently been the best music/$ value over many years and hold up very well. While I don't own a pair of Vandersteens many of my non audiophile friends have bought Vandersteens after I recommended they give them a listen. Guess what, I think their reciever/integrtaed based systems sound damn musical and they LOVE them. I am less enthusastic about the high end products of B&W and Thiels as recommended by others and preferring to recommend the speakers offered by Avalon and Wilson. Both are exceeding good, sound different but still right, with the Avalon's requiring lot more power than the Wilson's. Have fun!

Hluker It goes to show you that the REAL REASON there are so many manufacturers of audio equipment is that there are so many varying opinions as to sounds good. It isn't an easy journey. The rewards can be great if you are a music lover. If you become an "Audiophile" (my definition is one who becomes enamored of the sound of system rather than a system that serves the music as produced on the recording) you might end up in the merrygoround world of the audiophile. That is changing gear like you change your clothes. What is most important is to assimilate all that you can and make your judgements based on YOUR happens is that you will be more influenced by Gerrym5