I have heard ok things about Smith and Excel, nothing incredible. I have heard the following produce excellent top tier figs; Marseilles vs black, Col de Dame, Paradiso, JH Adriatic, Nero600, Violet Sepor, Vista (strain of VdB), Ronde de Bordeaux, Black Madeira, and a bunch others I did not list. A lot of these were mentioned a bunch in past threads on figs4fun, on taste reports and best figs of the year for xyz person etc.