[willy]

In spinning reels you cannot beat the Shimano's in my opinion, tough durable in all sizes and smooth. The best drags you can get.
In conventional gear I love Penn, I have about a dozen of them dating back to the first reel my dad bought me around 1964 or so. I use their Squiders, and 2/0 and 3/0 reels and love em. I use their various in between size reels and love them to for their simplicity and ease of getting the overhauled and getting parts to completely repair them. I will say that my experience has been they don't make a good levelwind due to the plastic gear used for the levelwind function which fails a lot under stress. I have two that I took the level wind off and use as straight conventionals now.
if you need a level wind the Shimano's again are the way to go in my opinion or a Abu Garcia which I have two that have held up for years for me and are smooth as silk.
There are other good reels also but for the money you can't beat the above in my opinion, especially with the spinning gear, there are more expensive ones out there but none that will work better than a Shimano period.
I buy American when it is feasible, but I also give credit where credit is due and the Swedes with the Abu's and the Japs with the Shimano's and the Americans with the Penn conventionals are th best value by far.
JMHO