I love them!
Though a fair few of the ones I’ve been on were not quite as pretty as that …
I’ve been passenger, pilot and even jumped out of them. And it’s the most robust feeling aircraft I’ve travelled in - always gives the impression that nothing can even fluster it. They don’t build planes like that anymore.
Ran out of ‘likes’ again lol
That is awesome! 
My father was in the Air Force as well though not a pilot, he was stationed over in Germany.
The DC3 (C47 military variant) is an absolutely amazing aircraft and I can understand why your uncle loved it!
For myself aviation has always been a huge part of my life. I soloed when I was 16 in a Cessna 150 and intended on flying for airlines or cargo unfortunately my health issues kept me from pursuing ‘flying’ further.
Yea they are great aircraft! And they are amazingly robust, as you mentioned they don’t seem to be able to be flustered, even in harsh weather environments like Alaska.
Very true!
I wasn’t sure if you were a pilot or not, as I was going to recommend to try flying lessons if you were not, as flying is a whole nother level of ‘freedom’ glad to hear you have been able to fly aircraft like the DC3!
I have been very fortunate to be in some amazing aircraft. Meet and fly with amazing airshow pilots as well.
Aviation in general is truly amazing and spectacular!
That like limit… 
My father was in the Navy, he wasn’t a pilot either.
He served in Korea aboard the USS Hornet, and on another Carrier of which the name evades me.
Apologies @Torq for veering off topic.
I know right!!! 
Thank him for his service for me! As I can appreciate everything that all of the ‘Service’ men and women, have done for all of us.
Yes Apologies Ian @Torq for veering off topic.
@Torq must resist:
My dad also worked at Douglas in Long Beach. Lots of great memories as kids visiting the plant with him.
Yes the DC-3 was a beautiful plane. I am also fond of Douglas A-4, but that is another story.
Greg
Ian you’ve done more for this community than either @andrew and I can put into words. You’ve been a beacon of knowledge for so many and answered so many questions for people who may not have full appreciation for the answers you give. And that’s just talking about this forum without mentioning Head-Fi, SBAF and the various other discussion places.
It’s been an absolute pleasure of ours getting to know you and the headphone meets you’ve hosted at your place have been a blast!
We’ve got our fingers crossed that your World Tour has Vancouver in its sights at some point and whether you’re rocking the tia Fourtes while swinging machetes through the Amazon Rainforest, packing a portable battery to run the RAAL SR1a on the back of a camel in the Sahara or just doing some regular headphone listening in a hotel we will be looking forward to hearing about it!
I wonder how that sounds on the RAAL 
Try the real song with the RAAL:
It’s a good example of old school big dynamics pop music.
And, YouTube’s recommendation after that song matches the @Torq departure topic too:
1970s hair…wow…wow…wow…!
thank you, @Torq, and have an absolutely marvelous decade!
Am I the only one that thought this version…
This gif reminds me off @Torq old profile pic!
David Gray - Sail Away -
@Torq thank you again for the suggestion to think differently and look at the Chord Qutest - it is magical. Also, all those beautiful photos and prose on the ZMF Vérité and the Rosson Audio RAD-0.
Thank you for all your patience with the community as you mentored all of us in this fantastic hobby. You truly put a strong footprint on building this community and so many great resources that you’re leaving behind.
You remind us it is time to listen, relax, sometimes even with your favorite beverage, not just argue over the measurement.
You held the community to a higher standard remind us we need to be welcoming, positive. So I want to thank you again for your leadership and stewardship.
To you and wife, all the best and godspeed as go on your worldwide adventure.
Nope, @generic beat you too that one …
Haha! Didn’t even see it.
Sail, because why not:
Congratulations Ian, I am sure that you will have a great trip. Thank you for helping me decide what headphone and amp to purchase. I enjoy the heck out of music now. Your patients with a person that started from close to zero knowledge was truly appreciated.
And such a nice community that you have helped build. You will are missed and hope you “pop in” every now and then …
With nothing on the horizon, at least that I’m aware of, that I’m looking forward to/expecting to improve the state of digital replay, I figured this was as good a time as any to list my current favorite items in a number of product categories – starting with DACs.
This isn’t an invitation to debate my choices. Yours will likely be very different – which is great. These are mine . I’m not getting into why I prefer unit A over unit B, nor why unit Y or Z didn’t make my list. It’s simply a statement about what my favorite units are, for the purposes of enjoying recorded music, at the current point in time.
Some of these units may include headphone outputs/pre-amp functionality but are evaluated here purely as DACs (some of which include additional components/modules to get where they are, e.g. the M-Scalers with the Chord DACs – and may rank differently if not used).
There is no consideration of value in this listing. If there was, it’d likely be somewhat different, though not necessarily dramatically so. Nor am I taking into account measured performance. The only consideration is how much I enjoy listening to music via the pieces in question.
Some other thoughts:
Notably, there are no NOS (non-oversampling) DACs on this list. If we went back in time a couple of years, there probably would be – despite their latent issues. But even when owning them, I gradually, and organically, found myself spending ever greater portions of my listening time with oversampling DACs – until I wasn’t using the NOS stuff at all.
DSD has proven to be a bust in my listening – whether end-to-end native, or converted on the fly. Sure, a few DACs do sound better when they are fed DSD content than they do processing PCM, even if it is converted on the fly from PCM sources. However, I think that says more about the implementation of those DAC than it does about any supposed benefit to DSD itself. It’s just not worth dealing with OTF conversions or the extremely limited native catalog for something that isn’t specifically better than simple PCM.
MQA has turned out to be little more than an uninteresting distraction for me. Other than the occasional “better” master being used for MQA releases (which, when it happens, also sounds better on non-MQA hardware and would also likely sound better just as raw PCM), I’ve found it to be detrimental or more than beneficial.
Finally, for Hi-Res playback, other than sometimes yielding a reduction in listening fatigue in long listening sessions, the only real benefits here, with competent DACs at least, are more about such releases occasionally being from different, “better”, masters than any of the other claims made for it.
Hello Ian,
could you spontaneously tell us, which one of the DACs is with you over the longest period of time?
Not, forced which you do listen the most.