I’ve managed to wear my venerable SLX cranks to the point that they have now got a big crack in them, so probably time for some new ones.
Shimano is my default choice, and I fancy XT over SLX mainly because I’m a tart and want everything to be black, not silver.
My only slight reservation is that you can only buy them with a full set of chainrings, which I have no use for.

Is there anything else worth looking at for a single ring setup?

Cheeers.

want everything to be black

heel rub is quite bad on the black XTs, so they’ll end up silver after not too long. I’ve just bought a 2nd hand set and will be touching them up and taping them to keep them stealthy.

I managed to sell my XT rings on here on my old set, got them from Rose minus the BB which i didn’t need anyway, worked out pretty cheap after selling the rings. I had the black ones and they did wear really quickly so if you want them to stay black i’d tape them.

Define “better”…er better?

Lighter, stiffer, stronger… What

XTR

Raceface Turbine are meant to be pretty decent.

XTR, THM Carbones, Lightning, Tune, Rotor. All better than XT!

For single ring I’d be getting XX1. Well priced and comes with that ring.

If you are a crank rubber then get some Deore arms. As they are not hollow but a C section they have thicker walls. Will cost you a few grams over XT and SLX but you won’t notice it.

Also get some thick PU tape for them and replace when worn.

Zee arms are thick!

middleburn.

Plenty of stuff is ‘better’ in some way (stronger, cheeper, stiffer or lighter), but they’re probably hard to beat all round, if you’re ditching the rings then SLX is nigh on the same weight for the cranks apparently (unless they’ve gone back to alloy axles on ST and steel on SLX?).

Stick with xt and plenty of tape.

Based on value vs performance I would say SLX cranks are better than XT and Deore better than SLX.

had this dilemma back when the progression was STX, LX, XT, XTR.

Started with LX and after a few XTs I settled on middleburn which never wore out in all the time I used it, and I rode in all weathers. all year round and lots of mud in the winter.

shimano may be better now but I am sticking with middleburn.

also wish I had bought a royce bb instead of the phil wood as the phil wood one has these cups at the end which cause it to creak, I suppose a bit like a press fit BB.