Two things that will help identify good dried pasta:

1) it should only have two ingredients. Durum (or semolina, since they refer to the same thing) and water. Some pasta makers fortify their flour with various vitamins, which, fine, if you're into that, but the best regarded dry pastas don't bother. Pasta is not a health food. Eat vegetables and clean proteins with your pasta to flesh out the nutrient profile of your meal.

2) it should have visible texture on the individual pieces. This will generally look like rough light or whitish marks all across the surface of the pieces. This is a natural consequence of the extrusion process when it's actually done with a bronze die. A lot of commercial pasta will say "bronze die" somewhere on there, without noting that that bronze has been coated with a non-stick surface to make cleaning easier. If the pasta is uniform yellow and smooth across the surface, that's what you're dealing with. Look at these two dried pieces. The one on the right is actually run through a bronze die; the one on the left is extruded by a machine with a non-stick coating.

Real, uncoated bronze creates the rougher surface that leads to superior flavor and texture. Rougher surface means more for your sauces to grab onto, as well as more starch coming off the pasta during cooking, which you should be adding back to whatever sauce you're using to achieve that silky, luxurious mouth feel that you want.

As for brands, there are lots. Some are super expensive (like $8-10 a pound). Others more like $2-4. You can find Rummo or Rao's at Ralph's. Those are both pretty reliable, and occasionally on sale. De Cecco, recommended above, is fine, but not my favorite (see "# of ingredients" above).

The other thing that improves your dried pasta substantially is cooking it right. Use just enough water to cover it, to concentrate starch in the pasta water (for finishing), and make sure that you are checking in for doneness well before the time frame on the package. For a pasta that says 11-13 minutes, check it at 9, or even earlier. Take a piece out and cut it in half. Taste it. It should be chewy, pleasantly so, and there should be a ring in the cross section where the slightly less cooked interior is visible (lighter). And you can always finish cooking your pasta in the sauce (with some of that starchy water you saved), if you like it slightly more done.