If there’s one thing I like less than other people’s telephone answering machines it’s getting muzak when I’m put on-hold. And if there’s anything I like less than muzak on hold it’s telephone operators telling me to have a nice day.

Until recently I was a dyed-in-the-wool telephone reactionary. One of the feW remaining individualists who enjoyed the silence of being on hold, aqd didn’t mind in the least if I called somebody and they weren’t home.

I say until recently, becausie, gulp, I’ve had to acquire a dreaded telephone answering machine apd become one of the pre-recorded.

Since everybody but shoe stores and newsstands sell telephone answering machines, my first problem was where to buy it. I’d set only two criteria: that it didn’t cost more than $79.95 and that it worked. Research indicated that I could spend up to $300 for one, but it seems to me that no telephone answering machine is worth more thain $79.95, no matter what. So I headed for the nearest electronics discount? house to see how the field was set up.

Oh brother! It seems like anyone who can’t make a pocket calculator is in the telephone answering machine business. There tire so many models and styles to choose from, each slightly different from the next, none of the differences mattering at all except on a cosmetechnical level. And at $79.95 the salesman at the discount house just smiled and went back to drinking his coffee.

Home again, I considered alternatives. Could I make my own telephone answering machine out of a couple rubber bands and my old crystal set? Maybe I’d get arrau pair woman to answer the phone in French. Meester Robansan ees nut een bit eef yuu’d car to 1uve un maysage.

Hello, this is Alexander Graham Bell. Mrs. Bell and Iaren't hom~e right now. But if you'd like to leave a message, just wait for the beep.

Fortunately I’ve been reading this column for several years now, and I know that the intelligent consumer must research his/her purchase before buying.

A telephone answering machine is a smart tape recorder, actually two smart tape recorders if you want to get technical. Connected between the telephone line coming out of the wall and the telephone, it senses calls made to the phone. When a call comes in, it electronically makes the connection. Then the first tape recorder plays a message into the phone line" and when the pre-recorded message is done, the second tape recorder switches on and records the response out of the phone line from whoever is calling.

$300. The most expensive answering machine plays a pre-recorded message on one cassette, then records what the caller has to say on a second cassette. A C-12Q.cassette is used to record incoming messages, so if each caller talks for 30 seconds the answering machine will record 120 messages, if you have 120 friends, or one friend who won’t give up.

Most $300 units have VOX circuits (voice operated switch) so the caller can leave as lengthy a message as he/she wants, so long as the caller talks the unit records, when the caller stops, the unit hangs up and gets ready for the next caller. VOX switches are theoretically fine, but if the caller should pause too long in midsentence, the VOX circuit will assume the caller has finished and hang up.

These expensive units also come with a beeper unit which you can carry in your briefcase (not included) and by calling your telephone answering machine from another phone, beeping the beeper into the phone, your answering machine will play back any messages recorded over the phone to you. Fine, except that anyone else with a beeper can also call your answering machine and get your messages.

1 -'Other conveniences of expensive answering machines are: a light that glows to let you know your machine has recorded messages; rapid fast-forward and rewind; switches so the machine will only give callers your message but not record any replies; monitor circuits so you can listen to calls as they come in, in case you don’t want to answer the phone but want to know who’s calling.

$200. No beeper at this price, usually no VOX either. These machines record incoming caller messages for 30 seconds each, then hang up on the caller. Again, as long as you use a C-120 cassette (one side of which is an hour’s recording time), the machine will record 120 incoming 30-second messages. Not quite as fancy as more expensive units in terms of rapid review and forward tape controls.

$100. Most cheap ($100 or less) answering machines do not use standard audio cassettes, but use reel to reel tapes instead. Tapes get noisy after constant use, and a standard audio cassette is more easily replaced than a special small reel of tape. These small reels won’t record as many incoming caller messages (usually only 30 calls can be recorded before all the tape is used up). The controls are more limited—if you want to listen back to the third caller message that came in, you have to play all the messages back from the start of the caller message tape. On more expensive machines you can fast-forward to the message you’re looking for.

$4.95. The most crucial part of any telephone answering machine is the special jack that allows it to be connected between the phone line and the telephone. These jacks only cost about $5, but make sure you get one when you buy an answering machine or you’ll have to make a special trip back to the store. Also, you’re supposed tp let your phone company know that you’re using an answering machine so theycan charge you extra each month for the right to do so (AT&T needs the money). Telephone company computers can tell if you’ve installed an answering machine on their phone lines, but as far as I know most telephone companies have stopped terrorizing customers who have installed answering machines without telling them.

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ON THE CENTER TURNTABLE

This /lew Yamaha M-2 power amplifier isn't having.an energy crisis; in fact, it’s got so much energy it could probably blow apart an average five room house at half volume. With almost no distortion, this Yamaha amp will put out 240 watts per channel to make it one of the most powerful audio amps on the market. . Also one of the best, and needless to say, one of the most expensive at $1200 list.

Most serious audio buffs have discovered that no matter how perfect (accurate) a system is (speakers, amps, pre-amps, cross-overs and so forth), the phono cartridge may still "color" the sound coming off the record. One manufacturer who’s got a solution is AudioTechnic who’s making a number of styles including this new Omnitec cartridge, the AT-23. It costs $275 (an all-time high for a phonograph needle?) and promises clearer reproduction of transients and high-level, high-frequency signals.

These RCA to RCA phono jack connectors are called Vital Lin|cs and like the new generation of cables in the hi-fi stores today, they feature gold-plated contacts. Manufacturers are using gold to keep down signal loss and distortion. The cost is $7.95 a pair from Audio-Technica.

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Questions to ask the telephone answering machine salesman:

* Can I set the length of the outgoing “I’m not here now/'’ message? Or does my message have to be a certain length, say 30 seconds, before the machine beeps and starts to record? .

* Does the length of the outgoing message affect the length of the incoming message? Some machines work this'way: they function for a total of 45 or 60 seconds;, if the outgoing message is 15 seconds, then the caller can talk for 30 seconds; if the outgoing message is 30 seconds, then the caller has to spit out the message in 15 seconds.

* Can I monitor the incoming calls (listen to them) while the answering machine says I’m not here and takes a message?

* How do I record my outgoing message in the first place? (Many answering machines have automatic microphones that will distort the message you record no matter how carefully you record it. Test this in store.)

As for my dream of a $79.95 answering machine, well, these days a $79.95 machine costs $125.