I am keenly intrested to find the best quality reeds...

Sadly, there is no "golden bassoon reed" that will play perfectly for everyone. It really is a matter of trial and error in finding a bassoon reed brand that you personally like. If you are willing or able to spend upwards of fifteen dollars on each reed then I'm sure you'll be able to find a reed brand that works wonderfully. But, if you're like me, that is well out your price range. I've been using relatively inexpensive hard Emerald brand reeds for quite a while. They are thick enough, in my experience, to allow for scraping and personalization. Since they are mass produced they are not always the best quality and some won't play for long and occasionally will not play at all, but overall they have worked well for me. And, of course, if you want they absolute best reeds for yourself, start learning to make them! Good luck!

Actually, I can make bassoon reeds,but those professional reedmakers,whose have already made over 10 000 reeds and have much more developed machines,probably do it better as me.One of my oboist friends who has a reed company told that the finishing cant be so perfect by hand as by his special tip profiler.If I'd buy all of the best machines that would cost as much as the price of a nice bassoon.

The same thing is true with me, the reeds I've made or, more often, attempted to make, are not very good. But once you are good at making your own reeds they truly give you the most control of the tone and hardness and the like. I am also pretty darn sure that most all professional and most college bassoonist make their own reeds.

I disagree strongly with your friend who says that machines make better reeds than a human hand can. First off, each piece of cane is slightly different, its harder or softer or different grain or aged longer or any of a number of other things, and a machine operates as if each piece of cane is the same (it doesn't change with the cane, unless the person adjusts for the cane). A machine is very good at getting many reed quickly turned out, but their quality will suffer if they are not worked on by hand. If you look at many of the expensive bassoon reeds they specify that they have been "hand finished," an indication of their quality. The hand and eye of a skilled bassoonist are indespinsable in reed making.

I don't think that machines have no use in reed making, I just feel that no reed can be finished to a high quality without some tender loving care from a person.

My oboist friend(he has an own reed company) has a cane-test procedure about the hardness,diameter,grain consistency -based on his own research and experiment ( thousands of reeds).He assort the cane before each sessions. Accordingly he can change the thickness,the ratio between the center and the edge,he has several shape and tip profil, etc.So his reeds are 99% finished after the tip profiling.
As I dont have all of theese devices and experiment I am not able to make professional reeds.This is the reason i looking for the best brand.

I'm a first year bachelor of music student studying bassoon and have found from experience that any reed can be a good read if the knowledge of how to fix it is undertaken. In other words, you can buy a new read or an old read and make it to suit yourself. My teacher will not sell his reads unless he has the student and instrument so he can tweak the read until its perfect because every student and instrument is different. Every read can be tweaked to suit the student and the teacher

I started trying e-bay reeds. First, i bought a 10 reeds lot, and they all are poor reeds... then i bought 3 reeds from a brazilian bassoonist (Francisco Formiga) (check user aquanix in ebay) There are excellent reeds !! little hard, but great sound. They are expensive (64 u$ the 3 reeds). I don't know when, but i will try james kopp reeds (they are little more expensive than Formiga's reeds). (www.koppreeds.com). I will also try other e-bay reeds, like janiak reeds...

There is no way to tell what reed is the best, since every reed have its own sound color and qualities. the only thing you can do is try them all :-) and learn to make your reeds by yourself (i didn't started yet, because i don't have the tools).

I wont give you any makes, partly cus I don't know many, partly because I live inthe UK so you probably wont know them. What I will say, is that handmade reeds are nearly always better than machine made reeds - eg. machines don't always define the collar very well.
That doesn't mean to say that machines people use to make reeds don't help (that's something different) They are still extremely helpful, and they save time. those machines are still operated by hand, so I think they're extremely helpful, though it is also very good to be able to do it completely directly by hand.
A Guy who teaches here can profile reed can by hand, and has the magic touch of being able to make any reed, no matter how rubbish, play absolutely fine. However, for us mere mortals, when a reed is dead it's usually dead.
Lots of people make their own reeds, but they're extremely complicated despite their size, so it takes an immense amount of practice, tuition, and experimentation to be able to make decent reeds. However, when you have mastered the art, you'll be grateful for it because you can make reeds exactly the way you want. And you can sell them to people to make money!

Back to the question at hand - try and get hold of handmade reeds. If not, buy a few from different places and see which you like best. If you get a reed that doesn't work, grab your pliers, plaque and reed knife, and experiment to see if you can get it to work.

I bought my set of reeds from the teacher of my teacher.

Had to order them a few weeks in advance and then rocked up to his place.
And he'd let me try out every one of them and adjusted them until they were fine.
He also adjusted a key for me so I could half hole my G properly, which was nice.

Imo it's best to have someone who has lots of experience adjust your reeds until you
know how to do it yourself.

I have myself only squeezed the lowest wire so far to open or close the "mouth" a bit.
But I just bought some tools for reed making and think of attending a class to get
a bit more of an idea.

It's just another one of those things that make playing bassoon challenging and interesting
Cheers
James

I make my reeds, except when I don't have time (which, given that I have 50 concerts this year on top of school, I often don't).

I usually get Albion Black bassoon reeds. They're $25.50 each, but completely worth it.