While I agree with WordMan that the methodology used doesn’t conclusively prove that the guitar’s sound is unaffected by the wood, their conclusion is basically what I was getting at with my “masonite or air is the ultimate tone wood” comment earlier.
I’ve played basses made out of lots of different woods, this masonite and poplar bass sounds better than any of them. My bass teacher told me when I was 14 that the bass I chose really didn’t matter too much. While the pickups mattered, it was really the amp that was important. When I got into a band, and usually got to hear at least 3 band’s instruments most nights we played, I realized how correct he was. All of the sound you’re hearing from an electric is made by the magnetic field flux interacting with your amp and speakers. If it doesn’t affect some part of that in a big way, it’s not changing the sound much.
Now, where I think the construction matters is:
-
The mounting of the pickups. Anyone who says a hollow body sounds indistinguishable from a semi-hollowbody, from a Stratocaster*, to a solid body isn’t listening close enough, I think.
-
The type of pickups, and how they are wired. Entire books can, have, and undoubtedly will soon be written on this subject. I won’t get into this, as I’ll get out of my depth and into voodoo pretty quickly.
-
Everything suspending the strings and holding them at tension. String contact/support parts, the neck joint, and the strings themselves. Poor, gappy bolt-on neck joints (I think these have almost disappeared!) sound different from a good one. I don’t think a set neck or neck-through construction changes the sound of the guitar very much from a well-made bolt on joint. At the ends, both the bridge and nut’s sturdiness and how well they’re fit to the strings matters. The replacement bridge I got for the Danelectro didn’t sound any different because it was made out of sturdier metal, it just didn’t bow anymore. On the other hand, the nylon roller bridges on my Univox ES-330 copy means that it won’t ever sound just like a real one with out a bridge transplant. Nylon just doesn’t hold a string like brass or even wood does.
Where my “masonite or air” comment was joking, was that it doesn’t have to be masonite. I think I love the sound of this bass because it’s semi-hollow. As long as the construction materials responded in roughly the same way the masonite body on this one does, it’d sound roughly the same. If the construction materials were say, steel or crepe paper, in the same dimensions, it’d sound very different.
On an unrelated note, my amp lust is now for a Traynor YBA300. 300W into 2-4ohms, 240W or so into 8ohms, a dozen 6L6s for a power section. They run in pairs, and will drop out a pair with a failing (or missing) tube. You can also mix+match in pairs of EL43’s to change the sound. I think I can switch out the 12AU7 for another 12AX7, and it could double as a guitar amp with wayyyy too much headroom, and the EQ in the wrong place. 
Of course, none of the above applies to acoustics much, though I have played a nice sounding aluminum dreadnought. I could have mistaken it for a wood one through the piezo.
You guys are great at schooling me where I’m a loon. Wail away!
TL;DR: See post #3169, it’s all in one line, in there somewhere.
*I have a theory about the classic s-s-s-on-pickguard strat’s signature sound. Since the pickups are mounted to a pickguard, and the body has a big rout, it kind of has the tonal characteristics of a semi-hollow, only reversed. The resonance of the hollow is diminished and shorter, the big, wide attack is still there.
