Mark Fleischmann

Price: $5,385 At A Glance: Ultra-thin bar for skinny flat panel display • Passive sub can fire forward or down • Sub amp offers lots of adjustability

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

There’s one basic truth about home theater that I can never repeat often enough: It is the union of big-screen television and surround sound. They do not operate in isolation from each other. Instead, successive waves of video technology have affected the way people think about audio for video.

The cobbler's kids always go unshod. I know nearly as much about video as I do about audio, but for a Sound & Vision editor—even a mere Audio Editor—I have been subsisting on a shockingly old and small TV. My 10-year-old Sharp LCD set was only a 32-inch because it was originally intended to supplement a front-projection display. But since then it has become my only video display. For that and a long list of other reasons, it was due for replacement.

As a longtime gizmo critic, I was fascinated by a scathing commentary on my tribe by Mr. Media Coverage (I'm not sure who that is) of GameDaily.com. Working for advertiser-supported specialty media has its limitations. And while many of us do a great job within those limitations, others may recognize themselves in Mr. MC's "7 Reasons Why Questionable Facts Go Unchallenged." The two that caught my fancy are: "We sometimes want to believe the questionable facts." Just like little kids. Still worse: "The lies make better stories." OK, I'll cop to it. At least where this blog is concerned, I'll fix on any idea that makes a pretty paragraph. But I'll have to watch my step!

Levi Strauss has redesigned its iconic jeans for the iPod. The Redwire DLX Jeans have a "docking cradle" to hold the music player—while concealing the telltale bump—plus a red ribbon to allow easy removal of the iPod, a joystick track-navigation control built into the watch pocket, a wire retractor to manage the earbud cable, a distinctive white leather patch, and bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching. Pricing and pictures were not available at presstime but the new product probably won't look much like this picture of my 550s with a nano stuck in the watch pocket.