hey...
I heard somewhere that older bassoons sound better (given a good bassoon) because the wood is older.
It sounds like rubbish to me, but what do I know?
Any thoughts?

In the opinion of many bassoonists, older wood has had time to mellow and thus the sound of your bassoon will be mellower. Old wood gets harder, so I suppose this would improve resonance in a bassoon.

hmmm....interesting, I guess my 60 yr old shrieber kicks butt in that field! Question though: how would the wood get harder with age?

'Old wood gets harder'

It depends on the wood & how it's treated. I've seen many bassoons with boot rot because of bad maintenance - ie not swabbing out after use or occasional sealing.

Another thing to be noted is that with changes in weather, and just time in general, the wood changes in size and can take some time to settle before it is less dramatic. For example, a new bassoon may be thrown completely out of adjustment durring its "first winter" where as a older one will not.

hmmm...interesting...

In fact I just had my whole bassoon overhauled and its less than a year old. It went completely out of line as winter hit.

I'd be interested in what you mean by 'overhaul' (To most techs overhaul = complete repad) & also what were the symptoms of 'completely went out of line'.
What is the climate like where you live? What make of instrument is it?

As well as minor changes in the wood pads will compress down a bit & also any thick key corks will causing minor regulation problems. I emphasise 'minor' - major problems will indicate cheap, badly seasoned wood & casual manufacturing standards.

The Moosmann I bought about 15 months ago has had no major problems - all I have had to do is adjust a few keys where lost motion (double action) between linked keys has become excessive due to this compression. (eg on thumb F# & G#) However I do live in a part of the world which has no great extremes of temperature & the humidity is generally quite high - which is kind to instruments.

Sorry, I got my terms mixed up. I had it all readjusted. At least 4 keys were sticking. Some pads weren't sealing all the way either. It's a Fox 220 so it should be fine. However I live in Chicago, and recieved it in the summer. If you don't know already, Chicago's climate varries quite greatly from summer to winter.

<Added>

*Fox Renard 220*

the age of wood makes a huge difference,no doubt about it. with todays mass production of musical Instruments and high tech processing wood has no time to age. the age of wood improves resonance in a bassoon and any other wooden Instrument as clarinet or oboe. no wonder there are many Businesses like http://www.music-oldtimer.com they know what real craftmanship is and are specialized is Instrument from the "past". also I do play a 40 year old Puchner and 25 years old Schreiber. never would buy a new Bassoon whatsoever!

WOW....who knew?

Older wood on violin and viola are better.