Replay gain with classical music?

As I understand it, replay gain won't change the dynamic range.

Yes, I use Replay Gain for classical music. It is correct that Replay Gain does not change the dynamic range within a track. What it does is change the volume of one track vs. another or one album vs. another depending on whether one is using track Replay Gain or album Replay Gain.

I think a lot of folks become confused because there are two different types of Replay Gain. Track Replay Gain and Album Replay Gain.

Track replay gain changes the volume of one track vs. another. Album replay gain changes the volume of one album vs. another while still preserving the differences in volume between tracks within each album. Neither one changes the dynamic range within a track.

I use iVolume. It allows me to apply the dynamic correction by album or by track. I rip to joined tracks with all of the movements of a symphony in a single file, so by track is fine.

Yep. iVolume is Apple's implementation of ReplayGain. They are basically the same thing.

Actually, it's a third party plugin. Apple has a thing called Sound Check, but it's crude compared to iVolume.

http://www.mani.de/en/ivolume/index.html

Ah, okay. I didn't realize it was a plug-in. I see that it actually implements ReplayGain where Apple's Sound Check didn't quite do it. One way or another, we all got to the same thing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVolume

Clipping can result. It gets a little complicated, because it depends which implementation method you're using, what type of file you're talking about, what music player you're using, how much the particular file is being corrected, etc. etc. Here's a pretty good article:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain

I use foobar2000 and so far I've only applied ReplayGain to MP3 files. I haven't been able to detect any audible clipping in my use of it so far, but your mileage may vary.

They might know more about it over in the Sound Science forum.

foobar2000 uses the preamp feature mentioned in the hydrogenaudio article under the "clipping" section to prevent clipping. From your description of iVolume, I think it's very similar.