In these days, usually Sony and Ritek, respectively. In the past you could also find Sony discs made by Taiyo Yuden and Maxell discs made by Hitachi-Maxell.
What's your drive? I've had good success with Ritek media, both TDK and Maxell branded, in my LiteOn LTR-48246S and Yamaha CRW-3200EZ. In my drives Ritek isn't as good as Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim DataLifePlus, but it's still quite decent. Also, the TDK branded Ritek seemed to be a little better than the Maxell branded version.
My experience with Sony media is very limited, just a couple of discs from a trade with a buddy. I wasn't too pleased with them because the reflective layer began corroding around the edges within a month of burning them and handling them. I don't know if that was just one batch or indicative of a general quality control problem with Sony.
By the way, do you have a link for those $2.94 specials? The only deal I see at my local Staples is $7.94 for 100 74-minute Maxell discs: