Radiohead read on

I have them all on LP (UK vinyl as available.) Their releases on vinyl all sound fine and mostly uncompressed. Taken as a whole their work is the most creative arc in pop since the Beatles.  I miss the more structured song forms that peak with OK Computer, but the dissolve thereafter into abstraction is a big trip. 

If I understand the DR charts correctly, the number represents the difference between the loudest and softest sounds per release and also shows similar best and worst track DR.

It tells you nothing for example about transient dynamics and what one might be hearing otherwise with this approach. The people who make these recordings want you to hear certain things in the mix a certain way. And be able to hear it on the devices that most people have to work with. Its an art and not a pure science.

To date I have found not much correlation between my appreciation of a recording and the numbers in this DR DB, although it is useful to help find recordings that might excel in dynamic range that one might not otherwise.
So its a useful tool but not enough to determine what to listen to or not. At least for me. YMMV.

One last point is I recall the CD Death Magnetic by Metallica to be one of the worst DR ratings at the time a couple years back. Someone sent me the CD in the mail to give a listen. Thing is for an audiophile to listen to this CD the way intended, loudly, requires a VERY good system. Listening to this CD as intended without ear bleed or negatively affecting how most other more normal CDs sound is an extremely difficult audiophile challenge I would say. There is little leeway for any added distortion to be introduced. But I have found it to be a useful test CD for my system in that regard and there is a lot of good stuff on it (if one likes what Metallica does in general of course) and the sound of my setup is better than ever I would say overall for the effort .

Mapman, my guess is you'd really like the Japanese SHM pressing of Death Magnetic. ;-)

Death Magnetic releases

Metallica Death Magnetic (Mastered for iTunes) 2015 07 06 08 lossy Download

Metallica Death Magnetic (Guitar Hero III) i 2008 12 11 13 lossless Download

Metallica Death Magnetic (Moderus III.2 Remaster) i 2014. 08 08 09 lossless Download

Metallica Death Magnetic [24-bit/88,2 kHz studio master] i 2014 05 03 06 lossless Download

Metallica Death Magnetic 2008 03 02 04 lossless CD

Metallica Death Magnetic [MarckIII Version] i 2009 11 11 12 lossless Download

Metallica Death Magnetic (Japan SHM-CD mini-lp) 2010 03 02 04 lossless Unknown

Metallica Death Magnetic 2008 03 02 04 lossless CD

I’m pretty sure this is the one I have. Pretty bad but some in the DR DB now show as 0 0 0 (you can sort using the column headers to see the best and worst in the DB at the top of the list easily). The dozen or so worst overall are now 0 0 0 ie no measured dynamic range. Turn these up loud and your amp and speakers gets quite a steady workout with no relief it would seem. That is if they survive, as well as your ears. Rock on!

They are already loud as soon as you start playing them. That’s kind of the whole point. The level is set higher on the compressed CDs than it is on their uncompressed brethren so they play louder. You can’t get in too much trouble because the peaks are still a lot lower in dB than they would have been uncompressed. You actually need to turn the volume DOWN on some cases.