[spart1cle]

Sorry to revive an old thread but....the Pleasurize Music Foundation has released the dynamic range meter for free as a Foobar plugin. It can be used to measure the dynamic range of individual songs and albums.
 
I've actually been using the offline dynamic range meter for a couple years now to measure all the music in my iTunes library. The trend I've seen with my music is that classical, acoustic, and jazz type albums have high DR ratings (often greater than 14) and classic rock is usually pretty good (with ratings over 10). I just wish the rest of my music was up to par as it would be significantly more enjoyable to listen to and less fatiguing to my ears. I also have a lot of progressive metal which compositionally is amazing but the dynamics are too compressed... I want to hear the drum kit in its full glory!
 
Some albums that have particularly good measurements are:
 
DR18 - Explorations in Space and Time - Jamey Haddad, Lenny White, & Mark Sherman
 
DR16 - Come to Find - Doug MacLeod
         - Brahms & Stravinksy Violin Concertos - Hilary Hahn
         - Higdon & Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos - Hilary Hahn
         - Paganini: Violin Concerto No. 1 - Saint-Saëns: Introduction et Rondo capriccioso; Havanaise - Waxman: Carmen Fantasy - Maxim Vengerov
 
DR15 - Chesky Records Ultimate Demonstration Disc Volume I
         - The Best of Maxim Vengerov (11 Discs) - Maxim Vengerov
         - Up Close (Binaural) - Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
         - Barber & Meyer Violin Concertos - Hilary Hahn
         - Paganini & Spohr Violin Concertos - Hilary Hahn
 
DR14 - Open Your Ears - Head-Fi & HDTracks
         - Billy Joel Greatest Hits Vol 1 & 2 (2007)
         - Urbanicity - Concerto for Electric Guitar and Orchestra - David Chesky
         - Blood Sugar Sex Magic - Red Hot Chili Peppers
         - Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
         - Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits Vol 1 - Creedence Clearwater Revival
         - Amazonia - Ana Caram
 
Just remember to enjoy the music!
         

 

[Beyakusenn]

Before I even knew what dynamic range meant, My father let me hear the album TriCycle from Flim & the BB's. I liked it very much and I've used their music for testing each audio component I buy. Now I know more about audio, including basic knowledge of dynamic range. I tested all the albums I have from Flim & the BB's and I have to say: I've never seen music with a larger dynamic range than this.
 
DR19 - Flim & the BB's - Big Notes (I guess the dynamic range contributes to the fact that this is my favourite album from this artist)
 
DR18 - Flim & the BB's - TriCycle
        - Flim & the BB's - The Further Adventures
 
DR17 - Flim & the BB's - Tunnel
        - Flim & the BB's - Neon
 
DR16 - Flim & the BB's - New Pants

 

[Seifer01]

I have a Depeche Mode CD I bought recently, Construction Time Again. It says Canada on the rear cover, but has the same codes as the USA pressing, so I presume the Canada/USA versions are identical.
Anyway, Dynamic range is 15. Min. track DR 12. Max. track DR 17.
 
I hunted it down, and was lucky enough to get it brand new and sealed for pretty cheap. I'm trying to find older CD's because a lot of modern remasters seem to be anything but!.
 
The older CD's I have sound so much smoother and much easier on the ears imo.
 
I got those numbers from that dynamic range database website.

 

[omasciarotte]

Also sorry to revive an old thread but this is germane…Way back in 2011, spart1cle mentioned above the original DR Dynamic Range line offered by the PMF or Pleasurize Music Foundation. Development of those products have since been handed over from the PMF to MAAT Incorporated and, though the original, free TT DR Meter and TT DROffline still work with older hosts, time has marched on and so has dynamic range measurement.

Nowadays, we have R128 and A/85 Loudness (normalization) standards in place for much of international broadcast and streaming. Still, for audiophiles and enthusiasts, there’s the same need for dynamic range measurement we had back in the day, especially for file-based playback. This is particularly true when comparing different versions and releases of the “same” album or single.

The original TT DR products were brought into the modern age by MAAT as the DRMeter cross-platform plug–in and, maybe more interesting for you all, DROffline (DRO) which is a native, batch measurement utility. DRO brought support for current 64 bit versions of macOS and Windows, as well as FLAC and ALAC support plus s.r. support up to 384 kHz. This month, MAAT rev’d DRO to DROffline MkII, which adds R128 metrics and a whole bunch of additional measurements that you folks would find of interest. The DROffline (MkI if you will) is also still available…

Note that integrated DR, a.k.a. DRi, is only available in the old TT DROffline and now from MAAT. The reason I mention that is, though there are various DR rip offs, the reason for a standard is, well, it’s a standard! That means everyone is using the same “yardstick” and measurements are repeatable by anyone and are interchangeable.

When most engineers think of dynamic range measurement these days, they think of the EBU R128 standard, with its Integrated Loudness and Loudness Range. There are lots of R128 tools out there. That said, R128 is a standard for Loudness Normalization, not for the measurement of subjective dynamic range (or lack thereof) of popular music as DRi is. DRi was designed to measure “dynamic density” or the amount of dynamic range reduction imposed on a song or album; how much it was “crushed” during production. No other metric does that.