In my recent experience and in talking to other players the best quality are hand made (which does use some machinery) and the lowest quality are machine made with a middle quality being hand finished tipo a mano(TAM). The hand made and TAM are generally better as they can get the air gaps to finer tolerances, this means the reeds need less air to speak (faster response) and give you greater control on volume and waste less air. In my opinion good quality TAM reeds are virtually as good as many hand made.

If I could afford it I'd go for at least TAM reeds but prefer hand made.