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 .
