The Racer is nice and Nokta/Makro are impressive newcomers, but the question was what COMPANY?
here are my thoughts.
XP for innovation focused tighly on European sites and real new thinking in the Deus mechanical package
Whites for tradition and the best repair policy in the business
Tesoro for a glorious history
First Texas for building three strong brands - Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter - and for having Dave Johnson and Carl Moreland.
Garret for history and customer service.
Minelab for making the worlds best (and most overpriced) gold detector the GPZ.
Nokta/Makro for being fast, agressive and competent.