I will say this, and of course its my own personal opinion, you get what you pay for. Last year I got some apple and cherry from "Western" (I would guess one of the larger supplier in the country) and the wood SUCKED!! I love
Amazon, I told 'em what I thought and they immediately dumped all their stored "Western " wood at pennies on the dollar. I did announce it on here. It was old and dried out completely. It actually caught my Cold smoker on fire. I bought about 24 bags of multi-flavor wood. Why you ask when it was so old. Because if you soaked it like the manufacturer's say it worked wonderfully. Not as good as the wood in the yard but better than normal store bought.
The wood sold by those companies has been kiln dried to expedite the packaging, shipment and sale. Then if it sits there a year or more its just too dry.
This is the biggest advantage of Todd's Pellets. They never need soaking, you need not check or worry about them. I find that fresh cured and not dried wood is best, pellets second then the store bought stuff. There is though , again I believe, a large difference between home grown, and pellets, as much as pellets and store bought. Pellets do a low and slow smoke where home grown gets with the program!
If you'll look on Craig's list, or the paper's classified (heaven forbid a news paper), or the bulletin board at the grocery store you can usually find local wood.
All this is my perception of the wood quality of different types.
AND now just a suggestion, every once in a while throw in a zinger. learn to use the woods that you wouldn't normally apply to some type meat. Use the quantity of smoke instead of the wood to do something different. Try a hard smoke on a light meat, just a lot less of it. It will blow ya taste buds away cause its different.