I've been snooping around in my local music store looking for replacement strings and I'm a little confused about those things. (Right now I'm using Martin's Marquis 80/20 Bronze Extra Light .010 - .047 -- what ever the heck that means...)

Light, medium, heavy, huh?

A Google search yields many, many ads for different strings, how to change strings, etc., etc. but I haven't been able to find out the actual difference between the different weighs/gauges(?)

At first, my thoughts were that the different types affected the action while playing but then I thought it maybe affected the tone (or maybe both?)

I'm gonna keep looking but any pointers or hints in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Nek.