Shimano XT – £32.49

or

SRAM PG1070 – £43.99

Both are available in 11-36

Just had a shimano one disintegrate on me, abeit after 2 years and around 1200 miles, but (if you believe the weights) it is significantly lighter.

Apart from reliability, my other concern is the damage to the freehub by all the individual sprockets

Is there much difference in the shifting ?

I’ve never had an issue with XT cassettes damaging freehub bodies and mine have always lasted pretty well too.

Shifting quality – I don’t think there is that much in it really but tend to use Shimano cassettes because the equivalent ones are a tad cheaper and seem slightly better made (i.e. no nasty lock rins).