As in title, so far im going for the "Avid Elixir 5". Any good or anything better for similar brass. Also im from road/cross backgroud and i prefer the levers to bite early.

Ta.

I've never really got on with avids but never owned any Elixir's,at the mo i've got shimano slx which have been great,,really low maintenance and easy to bleed,also got some formula oro's which are brilliant.Hayes feel quite wooden and they're pretty cheap on CRC! i've had El Camino's and HFX9 and had no problems with either.Hope this helps.

Had deores/hones/xt/xtr/juicy 5s, and new xt with servo wave.

All shimano have been fantastic, avids were good but temperamental and had sticky pistons!! Best so far – Shimano XT with servo wave – pad life is great, brakes are powerful and controlled 🙂

I love Hope brakes and their back up, availabilty of spares, ease of service, etc. I tend not to bother looking at other stuff now.

My Avis Elixirs are great…. Although Shimano are also very good…. And Hope are great oh and so are Maguras….

Pretty much anything if you are spending that kind of mula!

Good luck.

Have some old Shimano Deore's that have needed nothing but new oil. 100% reliable now for 6yrs.
Also have some Juicy 5's. Again, no problems at all. And stupid amounts of stopping power also. (203/185).
Would love some of those new Hope's, the ones with the "union-jack" pattern levers…mmmmmm.

You should know by now that the answer is always Hope because: price/performance
least maintenance
easy bleeding
great support
good looks
British

Given the choice I'll go with Shimano these days, although I've still got a couple of sets of Hope's that have been fine.

Extra 10% off at Merlin Christmas sale.
Both SLX and XT looking attractive buys.
I've now officailly fallen out with my Hayes Strokers on my HT so I'll be dropping in there at lunch time today to get some XT ones @ £180.
….Unless anyone can beat that price at the moment.

I've used Formula, Hope, Avid, Hayes and Shimano brakes – Shimano have been without doubt the best in every aspect. Shimano FTW! 😀

I'm so tempted to dump my Juicys for Shimano XT. Only thing putting me off is that they do Elixer 5s for about 60 less and that's a lot of money to me…

Recommend me some disc brakes

get some disc brakes. They are very good.