I will disagree with jromanov slightly. Wood does have a subtle effect on tone. It may be drastic, if you move out of the family of tonewoods, as Ceri says they are all hardwoods with similar structures.

But jromanov is right in the sense that the effect of the wood on tone is, in my opinion a factor to look at when building a guitar, moreso than buying one. When building you shape the overall voice of the guitar.

When buying all one needs to do is listen to the sum of the parts, not fuss over minutae. A novice would be way out of their depth picking pickups by number of winds, or composition of magnets.(subtle differences here, can and will have a much mire dramatic effect on tone,) Leave that to experienced players who want to delve into subtleties.

I know I can't tell if a particular strat is ash, alder, or poplar without a visual inspection. I can tell all three apart hearing them one after another side by side, but each individually is another story.

To restate, i think the margin of difference between to guitars of the same wood is oft times as big as the difference between two with different wood (in the same tonal range.)

Now in the world of good acoustic guitars, which generate their sound in a different manner wood is paramount.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

You know,some of you have better ears than I do,after 40+ years of guns and loud music I have damaged my ears to the point of dealing with tinnitus daily.
I can tell which of my Strats sound better than others but not so much by the tone of the wood the bodies are made of,but by the necks or pickups and strings....then a huge part of my sound is the amp,without it I would still be frustrated by the sound of my Marshall or Mesa Boogie,which for my style don't please me like a BF Fender does.....it's personal and subjective.My son can dial up a tone on the Boogie that I never could and then that personal "player's touch" comes into play.
As far as the discussion here about tonal wood and new players making decisions,that's all fine and good,but a visit to the Fender Lounge will tell what most have on their minds...and that's not bad because most of us went through the same things at younger ages.

Upon further thought I'd have to say wood makes a major difference in tone. Go play a maple capped les paul alongside a all mahogany one. The difference is strikingly apparent.

Look at the new raw power models too, exactly the same spec as a studio except for the bodywoods and they sound nothing alike.

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No no and no

But they have different pickups.The all mahogany one has the burstbucker pro and the studio has the 490s.So are you hearing a difference in tonewood or pickups?And with the all mahogany, how much of a difference does having less body mass without the maple top come into play?

No they both have a 490 and a 498

Here

Compared to this

The Raw power has 57 pickups.

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No no and no

Ah , but the Gibson website lists the faded as having the burstbucker pro.

One of my favorite ever posts on this type of topic was from Forum user Orvilleowner. He said that shifting the selector switch a notch or two makes more difference to the sound than anything to do with the wood, the strings, the bridge block - etc etc.

He's right, and using that switch is free! (Once you've bought the guitar, obviously... )

Cheers - C

Okay I have a question....where does the wood come from,here in the US?
Most of the wood mentioned here is found here,I don't know about where else it is.
Here in my area of TN,logging is a somewhat big business and the hardwoods harvested are mostly oak red&white,hickory,poplar and some black walnut.
I've wondered about the alder,I'm not familiar with that around here and the ash trees are not that plentiful or that big...except some along the big rivers.
My son's inlaws are loggers,I might see what else they cut.

If you believe the wood choice affects tone, it does exactly that.