ive been doing a lot of research on this as im making the jump to a few conv set ups for next season, will be used for jigging the ditch, and throwing some bait/eels and maybe some big custom wood plugs.
you get a lot of different answers from who you talk to and where they fish.
the guys in NC are big fans of the akios reels, lots of killer revies, and avaialble upgrades,
Akios Fishing Rods, Reels and Accessories > Home some good threads on the other site too.
the other reel everyone keep stalking about is the daiwa Millionaire M7HTMAGST Surf Reel, its pretty crazy, fully magged, a lot of distance casters are using it right out of the box without tuning which is great sign.
Daiwa | Reels | Millionaire M7HTMAGST Surf Reel
i did get to play around with a fully upgraded,magged, super tuned shimano trinidad 16 or 14, im far from good with a conv reel but was tossing 6 and bait further than ive ever thrown on spinning. the reel seemed to have endless adjustments, it was tuned by ryan white at hatteras jacks in NC.
Trinidad A
still havent decided what route im going, probably a level wind for jigging and non level wind for bait/eels