Planning on purchasing an air filter after cleaning my throttle body & maf, I've done some fair digging through the forums, a lot of back and forth with k&n filters, a lot of people say the benefits are negligible and a paper filter would suffice just fine.

Can someone recommend me some good filters?

I've also heard Mann being mentioned, would that be a bad option?

Considering it for the price.

 

Mann is a top quality brand and would be a good option.
In my experience another top quality brand for Jags is Wix.
Your best bet is to peruse the offerings from Rock Auto and make your choice, see here: https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...ir+filter,6192
Dunno what year XJ8 you have so I put 1998 in the search field as a guess but I don't think the X308 4.0 NA air filter changed over the years.
Rock Auto consistently have the best prices for parts such as this and being in the US your postage cost would be minimal.

 

In continuance to OzXFR's good advice (I just picked up a couple MANN filters from a clearance RockAuto had), I also suggest NOT using a K&N filter. The oily residue on a K&N will get on the MAF sensor and give you issues and false readings. K&N's work well on other applications, just not these. Just dealing with everyday regular dust and such is enough for a MAF to deal with.

As suggested by OzXFR as well, we would appreciate that you please put your Jag specifics in your Signature. Different years have different issues, in saying a 1999 MY has a different motor than a 2000 MY (AJ26 vs AJ27), they may or may not be supercharged. Giving you the incorrect information can harm your efforts when and if you have an issue. This would include country because some countries like Australia and England have LPG and diesel fuel alternatives which we don't have in NA. As well as they have a smaller V8 option. This way we don't have to hatch this egg over and over.

 

Gotchya, thanks, picked up a Mann filter, as well as updated my sig.