I think you need to make it clear what standard you use to list them as "the best". <snip>
The' Best' all depends on the buyer - not some random person's thoughts... Most hardware guides here are pretty clear on that: 1st pick
your criteria and choose from either speed, efficiency or, service life and go from there. There are no miners that are the top in all 3 areas.
Personally I use service life as my #1 and that means any of Canaaan's Avalon miners.
In normal use, according to your experience, which ones get less issues? Antimners or Canaan?
Canaan are WAY more reliable then Bitmain. BUT, dollar for hash and power for hash they are a little less efficient.
It really becomes tough call with a lot of variables, if you have inexpensive power that you think will stay that way for a long time, then the Canaan are probably a better buy.
If you can't be sure of your power costs down the road then a bit cheaper machine that is a bit faster might serve you better since you stand a better chance of RoI and profit.
With that being said, anything can happen, the 17 series from Bitmain was a disaster for a lot of people. I have one in a rack that was out of the 1st or 2nd batch running with no issues since it was dropped off.
-Dave