I'd recommend the Hanson Irwin set in the little blue box. They're great quality and not very expensive. I think they're the same as what Snap-On rebrands and sells for lots more money (with their good warranty).
My set is a cabinet full of good name brand taps and dies, but if I bought a set in a box it'd be the Hanson Irwin, or Greenfield.
I do have an imported metric tap and die set and it is near junk... except I don't have a better metric set and it will clean threads OK sometimes.. not good for making new threads, too poor a quality.
So from my experience I would not buy a "cheap" imported tap and die set and expect much.
Being a machinist though I appreciate good tools and may have higher expectations on what makes a good tap and die set. And my advice to a non machinist is buy a good set, you'll have better luck with good tools than with so-so or plain poor quality tools.
Grigg
