Best Dubs and Voice Actors

[The-Excel]

Let's get this thread out now while the board is new.

Running count of celebrated dubs (sorted by votes)
Cowboy Bebop: 5

Big O: 2
FLCL: 2
Fullmetal Alchemist: 2
Paranoia Agent: 2
R.O.D.: 2

Beck: 1
Darker Than Black: 1
Full Metal Panic!: 1
Hellsing (TV series?): 1
Mushi-Shi: 1
Read Or Die: 1
Samurai Champloo: 1
Sgt. Frog: 1
Trigun: 1

Running count of celebrated voice talent (sorted by votes, then probably sorted by last name)
Luci Christian: 3
Caitlin Glass: 3

Crispin Freeman: 2
Hilary Haag: 2
Wendee Lee: 2
Monica Rial: 2
Kari Whalgren: 2

Greg Ayers: 1
Laura Bailey: 1
Steve Blum: 1
Johnny Yong Bosch: 1
Mandy Clark: 1
Trevor Devall: 1
K.T. Gray: 1
Todd Haberkorn: 1
Lex Lang: 1
Michael McConnohie: 1
Liam O'Brien: 1
Brina Palencia: 1
Amanda Winn-Lee: 1

Although a perfect dub is impossible, I hold the dub of FLCL as the golden standard against which every other dub is measured. No other dub has handled Japanese honorifics and pronunciation as flawlessly as that dub has. Its premiere on Adult Swim caused me to "give all dubs a chance", a rule I strictly adhere to when watching any anime available in English.

If I haven't made it perfectly clear by now, I'm an unapologetic fanboy of Laura Bailey. I don't think I've seen her worst work yet, but I'm sure it's a lot better than other actors' best work. She happens to have the hottest fake British accent in all of anime, and given how much of a turn-on heavy accents for me are...

[DickMcVengeance]

Cowboy Bebop and Beck are the highlights for me. I fell in love with the Japanese track for Beck, but somehow FUNi managed to pull something even better out of their asses for that show. Watching it in English was absolutely beautiful, and I have to give them a lot of credit for it.

[The Amazing Shenazin]

the Fullmetal Alchemist dub is of course one of the best ever made, the dub for Trigun is also a classic

as I mentioned in the Read or Die thread, the dub for R.O.D The TV is my favorite dub of all time, for one thing it makes more sense than the Japanese one because the British characters speak English and in English accents (they got real Brits for most of the roles too)

the dub for the R.O.D OVA isn't bad either, I particularly like Amanda Winn-Lee (zomg teh Rei) as Nancy, but while Kimberley Yates does a cute job as Yomiko, it makes more sense for her to have a British accent as she does in the TV series

I'm also fond of the dub for Hellsing, I love K.T. Gray's cute as a button voice for Seras, plus Crispin Freeman is badass as Alucard (it's one of his best roles in fact and considering how much anime he does that's saying something)

[ModernTenshi04]

Dubs I've enjoyed:

Fullmetal Alchemist
Samurai Champloo
Cowboy Bebop

Voice actors I like:

Kari Wahlgren
Trevor Devall
Caitlin Glass

I got to sort of meet Trevor at Matsuricon in Ohio this past summer, attending both the voice actors round table, and his individual panel on how he went from stage acting to voice acting, summarily talking about how you can break into the biz. He's a very stand-up, charismatic guy, who will answer questions thoroughly and honestly. You should check out his podcast, Voice Print with Trevor Devall, in which he interviews other voice actors in the anime industry. Very insightful and always fun.

[The Amazing Shenazin]

I forgot to mention, the dub for Paranoia Agent is one my favorites too (as well as being one of my favorite animes)

Michael McConnohie is badass as detective Ikari and Liam O'Brien is great as Maniwa

[Lyfeforce]

I've been watching mostly everything in subs in a small attempt to learn more moonspeak, but of the voice actors I follow, I'm a man of the ADV era. Greg Ayers, Monica Rial, Luci Christian & Hillary Haag still rank among my top ten. Still, you've got to give it up for Wendee Lee, Lex Lang and Johnny Young Bosch.

Also, as an aside, anyone else think it's cool that the general anime-watching populace has gotten comfortable enough with the native language that the honorifics are showing up?

[Praesul]

A lot of the anime shown on Adult Swim have terrific dubs.

Cowboy Bebop is the golden standard for me, honestly. FLCL's, Big O's, Paranoia Agent...Are also really great.

I agree with Beck having an awesome dub too. They went beyond what most do and dubbed the soundtrack too, and it sounded great! I prefer listening to the songs in English, really.

I'm also not ashamed to say I prefer dubs over subs pretty much all the time. It doesn't matter if they're mediocre or not. It has to be preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty damn terrible for me to hate it.

[KarenGellender]

Cowboy Bebop is the golden standard for me, honestly.
Aww, you beat me to the punch.

A lot of the actors who tend to impress me in dubs seem to play the minor characters; The original Evangelion dub was really uneven, but I thought the episode that focused on Fuyutsuki, Yui and Gendo had really great voice acting. Even in dubs that supposedly "suck", there's usually one or two actors who did a great job who go unnoticed in the background:(.

[The-Excel]

I'm also not ashamed to say I prefer dubs over subs pretty much all the time. It doesn't matter if they're mediocre or not. It has to be preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty damn terrible for me to hate it.
I say to "give all dubs a chance" just because of the effort needed to put out even a good one. Barring the ones where the staff obviously didn't care, a lot of work is needed to come up with a complete dub. It isn't easy for anyone, so that much effort really should be given a look.

That said, I give exactly one complete episode before switching to the Japanese audio if the English one disappoints.

[The_Kenji]

Personally I think the dub for Sgt Frog is pretty well done, funimation did a great job with it. The dub for all of the Fullmetal Panic series was pretty good, and the dub for Darker than Black and Mushi-Shi were pretty solid too.

as for voice actors you really cant go wrong with anything that has Luci Cristian, Monica Rial, and any one else from the clasic ADV voice actor lineup in it.Most of the actors for Funimation do a pretty good job, among my favorites are Todd Haberkorn, Brina Palencia, and Caitlin Glass. Wendee Lee, Steve Blum, and Kari Wahlgren, are all great actors and I have liked most of the stuff they were in as they usually do a pretty good job.

[The-Excel]

I added a roster of the best dubs and voices according to posts in this thread. Additionally I would like to add points for Cowboy Bebop, Luci Christian, Caitlin Glass, Mandy Clark and Crispin Freeman.