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LOTS of bars and restaurants on Long Island have signs advertising live music. These signs should be larger. They can easily be missed by careless or shortsighted patrons. More than once Ive found myself sitting down for a quiet drink or dinner when, without warning or apology, a group of young people dressed in black starts setting up multiple microphones and gigantic loudspeakers on a tiny stage.

The appearance of massive electronic equipment is very bad news for the customers. When they switch the apparatus on, I know I will be blasted out of my seat, and probably right out of the room, by a noise like a Boeing 747 taking off from the next table.

Conversation becomes impossible. Wagner said, When the speech of man stops short, then the art of music begins; but I would put it the other way around. Sitting at the back of the room is no defense. Most bands are wise to that trick and place speakers behind you, so that your eardrums can be adequately blasted from all directions.

Wax earplugs are useless. But I was thinking of getting a personal communications device from Radio Shack, a kind of wireless intercom that allows civilized conversation to be maintained even in the most extreme conditions.

Long Island has a big live-music scene. About 200 establishments offer this kind of entertainment. The most popular acts seem to be generic rock, industrial-strength-Nassau-County-blues and something called alternative music. I was puzzled by this until I heard it, and identified the missing preposition. This is obviously an alternative to music for people who prefer to hear something else.

I love music, but the word is being used too loosely. Not all deliberate noise is music, any more than all deliberate writing is literature. We know from the Marquis de Sade that pleasure has many connotations, and musical taste is a great mystery. But my complaint is that this live music is often delivered at such a massively inflated volume that you cant tell rock from Rachmaninoff. All the unfortunate customer can do is to cower under the table, pushing the earplugs in tighter and praying that the performers will stop or blow a fuse.

The traditional way to magnify music was to get together with a group of other players in a band or orchestra. But now, any 90-pound weakling with the right amplifier can blast the New York Philharmonic clean off the stage. Right now, theres controversy over the use of amplification at the Metropolitan Opera, which has always despised such artificial aids. But I suppose it must come, if only on the grounds of equal opportunity. People with weak, reedy little voices have been barred from operatic careers until now, and such injustice cannot be tolerated for ever. Move over Three Tenors, here come the boys with the big amps.

This is clearly the music of the future, and I dont want to be left behind by progress. So I visited the mecca of musical equipment on Long Island, Sam Ashs amazing emporium on Walt Whitman Boulevard. On one side of the store are the beautiful but archaic instruments that we read about in history books: pianos, violins, acoustic guitars, oboes and so on. The other side is a wonderland of electronic devices, tended by earnest young men dressed in black. Here, if anywhere, I could learn the secret of modern music.

It was immediately obvious that the heart of the modern live performance is the amplifier. Dozens of them were stacked up in floor-to-ceiling racks. These professional best acoustic guitar amp under 200 amplifiers, any one of which may deliver 1,000 watts, make your home stereo at full volume sound like a string quartet playing in a deep hole in the next county. Its called sound reinforcement. Every little plink of your guitar string echoes across the landscape like the crack of doom. Untalented drummers in Huntingdon can be clearly heard in Patchogue.

But the amplifier is just the beginning of the sound system. There are equalizers to make your music more equal, compressors to make it shorter, strobe lights to distract the audience from any wrong notes and all kinds of devices to tweak and improve the quality of the sound. The resulting decibels are run through synthesizers, processors and mixing boards big enough for a whole radio station. All of these gadgets come with numerous flashing lights, knobs, buttons and programmable screens. If you are moving up from playing the flute, the learning curve must be very steep indeed.

At the very end of the line come the speakers, huge intimidating black objects that cost a fortune. As I understand it, the rule is that the total mass and weight of speakers must equal that of the whole band combined. For maximum effect, the speakers and the band can be piled one on top of another.

My old acoustic guitar would obviously be useless on this crushingly amplified musical scene. So I started looking at keyboards. These are the lowest step on this pyramid of modern sound, but they have amazing features. Some will actually print your music as you play, a feature that Mozart would have appreciated.

I left Sam Ash with a modest keyboard, which promised to put the powers of a full orchestra, or a rock band, or a jazz band, at my fingertips. But I still had to decide on the details of my future performances. Popular music lost me somewhere about the time of Bill Haley and his Comets. Fortunately, just across the street was an educational establishment called Tower Records.

It was disconcerting to find that the thousands of CD covers in this store were profoundly uninformative, giving nothing but the name of the group and a more or less meaningless picture: no descriptive material, no track numbers, no clue as to whether the CD offered two hours of music, or six minutes. Obviously this musical experience was beyond the power of words to describe.

But there were listening stations. Here one could actually sample the music before buying. I wish you could do this in restaurants; it would save many a sleepless night. I went along a line of listening stations doggedly pressing each of the 12 buttons in turn. As far as I could tell, they all had the same heavy electronic beat, the same pings and whines, and vaguely spacey noises, as my new keyboard. I was unable to translate the lyrics, but most of them sounded like complaints of some kind.

The names of many of the groups were clearly designed to shock mother: Mortician, Atomic Bitchwax, Casket Lottery, Cannibal Corpse, Dehumanized, Lords of Acid and (very appropriately) Mammoth Volume.

Although it was somewhat shattering to the nerves, this musical tour encouraged my ambitions. I wouldnt care to go head to head with Beethoven in the composing line, but this I could do.

When my new keyboard was unpacked and plugged in, I felt even more confident. This machine is not far short of magic: it imitates 200 different musical instruments, plus lots of entrancing New Age electronic sounds. It provides harmonics and chords at the touch of a button, and 100 different kinds of rhythm backing. Very quickly I identified what seem to be the two universal beats: No. 031 (eight-beat rock ballad) and No. 035 (heavy rock). Who needs a band? I can do it all myself.

Im delighted with the creative musical skills I have I developed with my little keyboard. My rendition of Bachs Toccata and Fugue in D minor, played on the tuba with a heavy rock beat, and the voice track Woke up in the morning, found my baby gone has to be heard to be believed. To give my keyboard more juice, I wired it to a small 50-watt amplifier, and a couple of domestic stereo speakers. The resulting cacophony made the elderly neighbors reach for their heart pills and sent the cats scrurrying into the basement with their ears flattened.

All I need now is some serious amplification, perhaps a synthesizer, some flashing lights, a suitably disgusting stage name and I will be ready to start taking bookings. Beware: next time you see a live music sign, it might be me.

LOTS of bars and restaurants on Long Island have signs advertising live music. These signs should be larger. They can easily be missed by careless or shortsighted patrons. More than once Ive found myself sitting down for a quiet drink or dinner when, without warning or apology, a group of young people dressed in black starts setting up multiple microphones and gigantic loudspeakers on a tiny stage.

The appearance of massive electronic equipment is very bad news for the customers. When they switch the apparatus on, I know I will be blasted out of my seat, and probably right out of the room, by a noise like a Boeing 747 taking off from the next table.

Conversation becomes impossible. Wagner said, When the speech of man stops short, then the art of music begins; but I would put it the other way around. Sitting at the back of the room is no defense. Most bands are wise to that trick and place speakers behind you, so that your eardrums can be adequately blasted from all directions.

Wax earplugs are useless. But I was thinking of getting a personal communications device from Radio Shack, a kind of wireless intercom that allows civilized conversation to be maintained even in the most extreme conditions.

Long Island has a big live-music scene. About 200 establishments offer this kind of entertainment. The most popular acts seem to be generic rock, industrial-strength-Nassau-County-blues and something called alternative music. I was puzzled by this until I heard it, and identified the missing preposition. This is obviously an alternative to music for people who prefer to hear something else.

I love music, but the word is being used too loosely. Not all deliberate noise is music, any more than all deliberate writing is literature. We know from the Marquis de Sade that pleasure has many connotations, and musical taste is a great mystery. But my complaint is that this live music is often delivered at such a massively inflated volume that you cant tell rock from Rachmaninoff. All the unfortunate customer can do is to cower under the table, pushing the earplugs in tighter and praying that the performers will stop or blow a fuse.

The traditional way to magnify music was to get together with a group of other players in a band or orchestra. But now, any 90-pound weakling with the right amplifier can blast the New York Philharmonic clean off the stage. Right now, theres controversy over the use of amplification at the Metropolitan Opera, which has always despised such artificial aids. But I suppose it must come, if only on the grounds of equal opportunity. People with weak, reedy little voices have been barred from operatic careers until now, and such injustice cannot be tolerated for ever. Move over Three Tenors, here come the boys with the big amps.

This is clearly the music of the future, and I dont want to be left behind by progress. So I visited the mecca of musical equipment on Long Island, Sam Ashs amazing emporium on Walt Whitman Boulevard. On one side of the store are the beautiful but archaic instruments that we read about in history books: pianos, violins, acoustic guitars, oboes and so on. The other side is a wonderland of electronic devices, tended by earnest young men dressed in black. Here, if anywhere, I could learn the secret of modern music.

It was immediately obvious that the heart of the modern live performance is the amplifier. Dozens of them were stacked up in floor-to-ceiling racks. These professional amplifiers, any one of which may deliver 1,000 watts, make your home stereo at full volume sound like a string quartet playing in a deep hole in the next county. Its called sound reinforcement. Every little plink of your guitar string echoes across the landscape like the crack of doom. Untalented drummers in Huntingdon can be clearly heard in Patchogue.

But the amplifier is just the beginning of the sound system. There are equalizers to make your music more equal, compressors to make it shorter, strobe lights to distract the audience from any wrong notes and all kinds of devices to tweak and improve the quality of the sound. The resulting decibels are run through synthesizers, processors and mixing boards big enough for a whole radio station. All of these gadgets come with numerous flashing lights, knobs, buttons and programmable screens. If you are moving up from playing the flute, the learning curve must be very steep indeed.

At the very end of the line come the speakers, huge intimidating black objects that cost a fortune. As I understand it, the rule is that the total mass and weight of speakers must equal that of the whole band combined. For maximum effect, the speakers and the band can be piled one on top of another.

My old acoustic guitar would obviously be useless on this crushingly amplified musical scene. So I started looking at keyboards. These are the lowest step on this pyramid of modern sound, but they have amazing features. Some will actually print your music as you play, a feature that Mozart would have appreciated.

I left Sam Ash with a modest keyboard, which promised to put the powers of a full orchestra, or a rock band, or a jazz band, at my fingertips. But I still had to decide on the details of my future performances. Popular music lost me somewhere about the time of Bill Haley and his Comets. Fortunately, just across the street was an educational establishment called Tower Records.

It was disconcerting to find that the thousands of CD covers in this store were profoundly uninformative, giving nothing but the name of the group and a more or less meaningless picture: no descriptive material, no track numbers, no clue as to whether the CD offered two hours of music, or six minutes. Obviously this musical experience was beyond the power of words to describe.

But there were listening stations. Here one could actually sample the music before buying. I wish you could do this in restaurants; it would save many a sleepless night. I went along a line of listening stations doggedly pressing each of the 12 buttons in turn. As far as I could tell, they all had the same heavy electronic beat, the same pings and whines, and vaguely spacey noises, as my new keyboard. I was unable to translate the lyrics, but most of them sounded like complaints of some kind.

The names of many of the groups were clearly designed to shock mother: Mortician, Atomic Bitchwax, Casket Lottery, Cannibal Corpse, Dehumanized, Lords of Acid and (very appropriately) Mammoth Volume.

Although it was somewhat shattering to the nerves, this musical tour encouraged my ambitions. I wouldnt care to go head to head with Beethoven in the composing line, but this I could do.

When my new keyboard was unpacked and plugged in, I felt even more confident. This machine is not far short of magic: it imitates 200 different musical instruments, plus lots of entrancing New Age electronic sounds. It provides harmonics and chords at the touch of a button, and 100 different kinds of rhythm backing. Very quickly I identified what seem to be the two best acoustic guitar amp under 200 universal beats: No. 031 (eight-beat rock ballad) and No. 035 (heavy rock). Who needs a band? I can do it all myself.

Im delighted with the creative musical skills I have I developed with my little keyboard. My rendition of Bachs Toccata and Fugue in D minor, played on the tuba with a heavy rock beat, and the voice track Woke up in the morning, found my baby gone has to be heard to be believed. To give my keyboard more juice, I wired it to a small 50-watt amplifier, and a couple of domestic stereo speakers. The resulting cacophony made the elderly neighbors reach for their heart pills and sent the cats scrurrying into the basement with their ears flattened.

All I need now is some serious amplification, perhaps a synthesizer, some flashing lights, a suitably disgusting stage name and I will be ready to start taking bookings. Beware: next time you see a live music sign, it might be me.

Mass-market paperbacks are softcover books sold at newsstands, variety stores and supermarkets, as well as in bookstores. This listing is based on computer-processed reports from bookstores and representative wholesalers with more than 40,000 outlets across the United States.

1SURRENDER TO LOVE, by Rosemary Rogers. (Avon, $3.95.) A 19thcentury Ceylonese heiress love-hate relationship with her cousin: fiction.

2THE ROAD TO GANDOLFO, by Robert Ludlum. (Bantam, $3.75.) The abduction of a Pope becomes a comic caper: fiction. 3E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, by William Kotzwinkle. (Berkley, $2.95.) Novelization of the film. 4THE GLITTER DOME, by Joseph Wambaugh. (Bantam, $3.95.) Two homicide detectives trapped by Hollywoods temptations: fiction. 5TRADE WINDS, by M.M. Kaye. (Bantam, $3.95.) Life and love in exotic Zanzibar: fiction. 6STAR TREK: The Wrath of Khan, by Vonda N. McIntyre. (Pocket, $2.50.) Novelization of the space-adventure film. 7THE CINDERELLA COMPLEX, by Colette Dowling. (Pocket, $3.95.) Womens hidden fear of independence. 8THE MIDWIFE, by Gay Courter. (NAL/Signet, $3.95.) A womans efforts to become a physician in turn-of-the-century New York: fiction.

9WOMENS WORK, by Anne Tolstoi Wallach. (NAL/Signet, $3.95.) A woman strives for a top place in the advertising business: fiction. 10THE LORD GOD MADE THEM ALL, by James Herriot. (Bantam, $3.95.) More reminiscences of the Yorkshire vet. 11HOW TO MAKE LOVE TO A MAN, by Alexandra Penney. (Dell, $2.95.) How-to. 12GORKY PARK, by Martin Cruz Smith. (Ballantine, $3.95.) A triple murder in Moscow: fiction. 13FOR LOVE OF AUDREY ROSE, by Frank DeFelitta. (Warner, $3.95.) The reincarnation of a little girl who died in the flames of a car crash: fiction.

14LICENSE RENEWED, by John Gardner. (Berkley, $2.95.) The return of James Bond: fiction. 15RASH RECKLESS LOVE, by Valerie Sherwood. (Warner, $3.50.) Beautiful woman and fearless pirates: fiction. TRADE

Trade paperbacks are softcover books usually sold in bookstores and at an average price higher than mass-market paperbacks. This listing is based on computer-processed reports from 1,600 bookstores in every region of the United States.

1REAL MEN DONT EAT QUICHE, by Bruce Feirstein. (Pocket, $3.95.) Macho humor, with drawings. 2THIN THIGHS IN 30 DAYS, by Wendy Stehling. (Bantam, $2.95.) Howto. 3CHOCOLATE: The Consuming Passion, by Sandra Boynton. (Workman, $4.95.) Making fun of chocoholics, with drawings. 4COLOR ME BEAUTIFUL, by Carole Jackson. (Ballantine, $8.95.) Beauty tips for women. 5GARFIELD WEIGHS IN, by Jim Davis. (Ballantine, $4.95.) The latest adventures of the gluttonous feline: cartoons. 6WHAT best paver sealer on the market COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? by Richard Nelson Bolles. (Ten Speed Press, $6.95.) Guide for job-hunters and career-changers. 7GARFIELD BIGGER THAN LIFE, by Jim Davis. (Ballantine, $4.95.) Cartoon humor. 8NEVER-SAY-DIET BOOK, by Richard Simmons. (Warner, $7.95.) A regimen by the Hollywood television personality. 9GARFIELD AT LARGE, by Jim Davis. (Ballantine, $4.95.) Cartoon humor.10ONCE IN A LIFETIME, by Danielle Steel. (Dell, $6.95.) A young woman copes with the problems of widowhood and motherhood: fiction. 11GARFIELD GAINS WEIGHT, by Jim Davis. (Ballantine, $4.95.) Cartoon humor. 12PERSONHOOD, by Leo F. Buscaglia. (Fawcett, $5.95.) A prescription for becoming ones individual self. 13THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS, edited and translated by Erika Cheetham. (Perigee, $5.95.) Predictions by the 16th-century French astrologer.

14GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, by Frank Herbert. (Berkley, $6.95.) Fourth novel in the series about the planet Dune. 15CHUCK DI HAVE A BABY, by John Boswell, Patty Brown and Will Elder. (Fireside, $4.95.) British royal family paperdoll cut-outs.

When considering a new camcorder, one of the first choices to make is the recording medium that you will use to record your movies. Selecting a recording media first will significantly reduce the number of camcorders you need to consider, so decisions made afterwards will be quite a bit easier. Let’s review the types of storage media available as well the types of user/usage each media is best suited for.

== Tape Camcorders ==

Even though it’s been around for a long time, tape provides the highest grade recordings for camcorders. When recording to tape, the image is subjected to the least amount of compression so your recordings maintain the best possible image quality. In addition to providing sharpest images, tape-based camcorders also tend to be cheaper than camcorders that make use of other storage media.

One downside to tape-based camcorders is that the tapes are limited as to how much can be recorded to between 60 – 90 minutes. But the recording tapes are fairly cheap to buy, so carrying backup tapes is usually not an issue. An additional issue with camcorders that record to tape is that to get your recordings onto a format you can send to Grandma (a DVD for example) requires that you download your movie to a computer first. The downloading transfer takes place in real time. So if you need to download a 90-minute recording to your computer, it will really take 90 minutes. With tape-based camcorders, you cannot perform any sort of editing (other than backing over the tape and recording over it again); all of the editing needs to take place on your computer.

Tape-based camcorders are ideal for two types of users: people who want high quality recordings, and people on a budget.

== Hard-Drive Camcorders ==

Hard-disk drive (HDD) camcorders tend to give the longest possible recording lengths. With typical amounts of compression, you can typically get as much as 10 hours of recording time on an HDD camcorder. With an HDD camcorder, you never need to buy additional tapes. Depending on the specific model, you can edit your recordings right on your camcorder. And when it is time to transfer your movies to your computer, the transfer rate is substantially higher than when transferring recordings from a tape-based camcorder.

The main downside with HDD camcorders is that the movies are most often very compressed and this can lead to poorer image quality. HDDs themselves are also comparatively power hungry and can be more easily ruined from environmental extremes or drops (as can your camcorder itself). But if you ruin your tape-based camcorder, while the camera may be dead, you still have the tape. In the case of an HDD-based camcorder, if it gets destroyed, you are unlikely to get your existing recordings off the camcorder.

HDD camcorders are extremely versatile and they are principally meant for the home user.

== DVD camcorders ==

Camcorders that store directly to a DVD as their recording medium are a good choice for folks who desire a recording format that is widely playable and for those without a computer. There’s nothing simpler than recording a movie on your camcorder and putting the result right into the DVD player.

The primary negative for DVD camcorders is the length of recording and the image quality. The amount of recording time available will depend on the compression employed, but at the best recording quality settings, you can expect to get only get 20 – 30 minutes per DVD. If you reduce the quality of the compression you can get longer recording times, but then your recording quality is reduced.

DVD camcorders are an excellent pick for people without computers since there is no need to upload the video from of the camera; it comes off directly on the DVD. If you have a computer, and it’s a model that you do not think is appropriate to the increased demands of video transfer and editing, a DVD camcorder may also be a good pick for you.

== Flash Camcorders ==

As advances continue to be made in the flash memory field, flash-based camcorders are becoming more prevalent. Solid-state flash takes up very little space and is relatively low-power, so camcorders with flash memory as a storage media tend to be lighter and smaller than other camcorder models. They also tend to be more rugged and are able to take more abuse such as drops. Like many other models, flash-based camcorders need to have their recordings transferred to a computer before the video can be put onto a DVD, but the transfer is typically very fast for most models.

As with other non-tape based camcorders, there may be issues around image quality and compression. Also, depending on the amount of the flash memory available, there may issues around the amount of the recording time available.

If you are searching for the lightest and smallest camcorder obtainable, a flash-based camcorder https://guidematrix.com is probably your best bet.

EXECUTIVES who want to buy computers for their companies, or at least contribute to the discussion of which machines to buy, often do not have the time or patience to evaluate the 104 different models powered by the Itel 80386 microprocessor. Or perhaps an executive is charged with deciding which data base program to buy but doesnt know which way to turn.

More than a dozen weekly or monthly publications are ready to provide advice, relying on laboratories to evaluate hardware and software, reporting which product in a certain category is better than the rest. But which publication to read? The possibilities include PC Magazine, InfoWorld, PC Week, MacWorld, ComputerWorld, Computer Shopper, Personal Computing, PC/Computing, PC Digest, Software Digest, The Corporate Software Guide, Computer Currents, MacUser and Home Office Computing.

The reviews are serious business. Several magazines have established million-dollar testing facilities that rival the laboratories used by Consumer Reports to test a wide variety of products. The publications proudly trumpet the comprehensiveness of their reviews to advertisers and readers alike.

PC Magazine, published by the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company of New York, has by far the most ambitious lab. Frederic E. Davis, its director, said his operation has Learn here spent $3 million on testing equipment, and has a staff of 24, including three people who work full time just to keep track of boxes, equipment and shipping. PC Magazine is famous for what it calls blockbuster tests, comparing as many as 110 printers or 104 computers.

Comprehensive reviews can help an executive find a product that most closely matches his or her companys needs, or at least narrow the search to handful of choices. The testing procedures are often exhaustive, discovering bugs or other flaws that eluded the manufacturers quality jcontrol programs. The comprehensiveness of the testing can save an executive countless hours of searching and evaluating.

BUT it is important to remember that some comparative ratings cannot always be taken at face value. A number of factors can skew the results and perhaps lead to a false reliance on bottom-line scores or best product designations:

* Each publication has a different concept of good and evil. A publication aimed at the corporate buyer may give high marks to a program loaded with features, while a publication intended for the small business executive may criticize the same program as needlessly complex. At some publications the evaluators suffer from what I call feature nymphomania, said Jeff Angus, a former director of the InfoWorld Test Center. They never met a feature they didnt like. Mr. Angus is editor of the InfoWorld Consumer Product Guide, Volume 1 past year.

* Performance criteria must be weighed differently for different purchases. If a business is shopping for one or two 33-megahertz 80386-based machines to use as a network file server, speed and performance count more than cost. If it needs 500 computers for general office work, speed might well be less important than cost. The weighting we use is an average that reflects our typical reader, who spends $250,000 a year on hardware and software, said Michael Miller, executive editor of InfoWorld. Not everyone is going to match the average. People have different needs and different interests.

* Testing procedures are not iniform and sometimes have little to do with real-life applications. Many publications devise a battery of tests, called benchmarks; some hardware and software companies tweak their products to perform well on a certain magazines tests. But benchmarks may not mean much in real life. For example, the important thing about a data base is not how fast it works, but how easily it allows the use to customize an application. The CPU analyzer, for example, tells you absolutely everthing can be known about a very small component of the system, but the only thing it proves is how good these computers are at running speed tests, Mr. Angus said.

* To counter specmanship, or the over-reliance on technical data generated by the benchmarks, the labs go to great lengths to try to reach a balance in objective and subjective tests. Tests are devised to measure performance under conditions that approximate normal office activity. But can anyone be sure the tests are realistic? Somebody once told me that you can ask the wrong questions and get right answers, or ask the right questions and get the wrong answers, said Andrew Eisner, director of MacUser Labs. Our goal is to ask the right questions and get the right answers, and if were lucky we can do that 90 percent of the time.

* The top pick of a given publication is not necessarily the best product for any one companys needs. Rather, it is thesafest one to buy. The best rating is given to the product that meets the needs of the average user. So a product that is ideal for the specific needs of one business may have received a ho-hum rating.

* The marketplace changes so rapidly that by the time a product roundup appears, there may be new pruducts that were not reviews. After checking the reviews, buyers should consult with dealers and study the news reports in trade publications.

* Unlike Consumer Reports, which buys the products its tests and which does not accept advertising, virtually all the computer trade publications depend on advertising and borrow the products from the manufacuters for a limited period of time. (This newspaper has similar policies.) The editorial and advertising staffs are usually separate, and there is no evidence that nay major publication has altered or withheld an unfavorable evaluation under pressure from the advertisiers. Indeed, all the lab directors said they were fiercely defiant of any attempts by the sales staff to influence a review.

Many publications implore their readers to think for themselves and give them the tools to evaluate the products on their own. Many reviews include a page describing how the products were selected, how the tests were done and how the results were weighted. In Infoworld, for example, the reader is given the raw data and a scoresheet, from which to calculate a score that reflects the readers specific bias. Think about what you need before you read the article, said Mr. Davis of PC Magazine. Dont let the article tell you what you need.

EXECUTIVES who want to buy computers for their companies, or at least contribute to the discussion of which machines to buy, often do not have the time or patience to evaluate the 104 different models powered by the Itel 80386 microprocessor. Or perhaps an executive is charged with deciding which data base program to buy but doesnt know which way to turn.

More than a dozen weekly or monthly publications are ready to provide advice, relying on laboratories to evaluate hardware and software, reporting which product in a certain category is better than the rest. But which publication to read? The possibilities include PC Magazine, InfoWorld, PC Week, MacWorld, ComputerWorld, Computer Shopper, Personal Computing, PC/Computing, PC Digest, Software Digest, The Corporate Software Guide, Computer Currents, MacUser and Home Office Computing.

The reviews are serious business. Several magazines have established million-dollar testing facilities that rival the laboratories used by Consumer Reports to test a wide variety of products. The publications proudly trumpet the comprehensiveness of their reviews to advertisers and readers alike.

PC Magazine, published by the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company of New York, has by far the most ambitious lab. Frederic E. Davis, its director, said his operation has spent $3 million on testing equipment, and has a staff of 24, including three people who work full time just to keep track of boxes, equipment and shipping. PC Magazine is famous for what it calls blockbuster tests, comparing as many as 110 printers or 104 computers.

Comprehensive reviews can help an executive find a product that most closely matches his or her companys needs, or at least narrow the search to handful of choices. The testing procedures are often exhaustive, discovering bugs or other flaws that eluded the manufacturers quality jcontrol programs. The comprehensiveness of the testing can save an executive countless hours of searching and evaluating.

BUT it is important to remember that some comparative ratings cannot always be taken at face value. A number of factors can skew the results and perhaps lead to a false reliance on bottom-line scores or best product designations:

* Each publication has a different concept of good and evil. A publication aimed at the corporate buyer may give high marks to a program loaded with features, while a publication intended for the small business executive may criticize the same program as needlessly complex. At some publications the evaluators suffer from what I call feature nymphomania, said Jeff Angus, a former director of the InfoWorld Test Center. They never met a feature they didnt like. Mr. Angus is editor of the InfoWorld Consumer Product Guide, Volume 1 past year.

* Performance criteria must be weighed differently for different purchases. If a business is shopping for one or two 33-megahertz 80386-based machines to use as a network file server, speed and performance count more than cost. If it needs 500 computers for general office work, speed might well be less important than cost. The weighting we use is an average that reflects our typical reader, who spends $250,000 a year on hardware and software, said Michael Miller, executive editor of InfoWorld. Not everyone is going to match the average. People have different needs and different interests.

* Testing procedures are not iniform and sometimes have little to do with real-life applications. Many publications devise a battery of tests, called benchmarks; some hardware and software companies tweak their products to perform well on a certain magazines tests. But benchmarks may not mean much in real life. For example, the important thing about a data base is not how fast it works, but how easily it allows the use to customize an application. The CPU analyzer, for example, tells you absolutely everthing can be known about a very small component of the system, but the only thing it proves is how good these computers are at running speed tests, Mr. Angus said.

* To counter specmanship, or the over-reliance on technical data generated by the benchmarks, the labs go to great lengths to try to reach a balance in objective and subjective tests. Tests are devised to measure performance under conditions that approximate normal office activity. But can anyone be sure the tests are realistic? Somebody once told me that you can ask the wrong questions and get right answers, or ask the right questions and get the wrong answers, said Andrew Eisner, director of MacUser Labs. Our goal is to ask the right questions and get the right answers, and if were lucky we can do that 90 percent of the time.

* The top pick of a given publication is not necessarily the best product for any one companys needs. Rather, it is thesafest one to buy. The best rating is given to the product that meets the needs of the average user. So a product that is ideal for the specific needs of one business may have received a ho-hum rating.

* The marketplace changes so rapidly that by the time a product roundup appears, there may be new pruducts that were not reviews. After checking the reviews, buyers should consult with dealers and study the news reports in trade publications.

* Unlike Consumer Reports, which buys the products its tests and which does not accept advertising, virtually all the computer trade publications depend on advertising and borrow the products from the manufacuters for a limited period of time. (This newspaper has similar policies.) The editorial and advertising staffs are usually separate, and there is no evidence that nay major publication has altered or withheld an unfavorable evaluation under pressure from the advertisiers. Indeed, all the lab directors said they were fiercely defiant of any attempts Learn here by the sales staff to influence a review.

Many publications implore their readers to think for themselves and give them the tools to evaluate the products on their own. Many reviews include a page describing how the products were selected, how the tests were done and how the results were weighted. In Infoworld, for example, the reader is given the raw data and a scoresheet, from which to calculate a score that reflects the readers specific bias. Think about what you need before you read the article, said Mr. Davis of PC Magazine. Dont let the article tell you what you need.