Brands alone, well loads of them are good.
King, Imanishi, Suehiro, Naniwa, Shapton, Sigma etc. Then your house brands from JKI (Gesshin), Korin (Mizuyama), JNS (Matukusuyama), Watanabe (AI) etc are also good. Beyond that you have to look at lines. King Delux stones work fine, regardless of what some people say, but that does not mean that they are 'great stones'. Better are, as already mentioned, the Hyper stones but these are harder to find and normally have higher shipping cost. Similar to the Watanabe AI stones, which remind me of Shapton M15 stones. They are good but costly when shipping is included and I find that the Shapton Pro 1k/2k stones work as a fair facsimile. Speaking of shapton you have the Pro stones (Ha No Kuromaku), Glass, M5, M15 and M24 stones. (I like the first two series best.) Naniwa offers tons of lines but the two most common will be the Super Stones (Sharpening Series) and the Chosera (Professional Stones) and of the two most prefer the harder/faster Chosera stones. Suehiro and Imanishi offer tons of stones under different lines and some are good, some great and some suck. Etc etc etc.
So, stone brands and stones series that are good are plentiful! My suggestions is to find one of the respected dealers in your region and see what they have then go from there. You want simple utility that works every time? Everything else be damned? Shapton. You want the same but are willing to spend more and gain a wee bit of feedback, Chosera. You want subtle nuances then you can go with the Suehiro and or Imanishi stones and hunt down the particular stones for each of your needs. You want the same thing with more comfort and customer support? Gesshin or Matukusuyam stones are the way to go. Or as others have mentioned, you want functional stones that do all kinds of neat things and will drag you into an endless rabbit hole then go for naturals. I might hold off on this one if I were you though!
It can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. As cheap or expensive as you can afford. Call/email a local vendor, explain what you want to do with your stones and what advantages you would like to have and go from there. Jon and Max, in my experience are the best about this sort of thing but Mr. Watanabe is super helpful too!
Good luck!
I prefer this because it allows for the refinement of a 8k(ish) stone with the bite of a 3-5k stone. Ymmv.
