That is up to the recording engineer. When we recorded Canto General, we did it without gain riding or compression both on the tape and the LP. So it was entirely uncompressed.
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Regarding 'Dynamics', its a word I am careful to avoid most of the time as it usually refers to distortion. IOW, you can safely exchange the word 'distortion' for the word 'dynamics' in about 90% of audiophile conversations without changing the meaning of the conversation.
Here's why: The human ear/brain system uses higher ordered harmonic (and also inharmonic) information as 'loudness cues' (not the be confused with Fletcher Munson). When such distortions exist in playback, they masquerade as 'dynamics'. I can point to a well-known example: In reviews of almost any SET, you will see a comment quite often, which goes something like this: "...despite its low power, this amplifier was surprisingly dynamic". The reason this happens has to do with the fact that the power is needed mostly on transients. At low power levels SETs have surprisingly low distortion, often unmeasurable, but as power is increased, distortion increases with it. Initially its mostly the lower orders (2nd, with small amounts of 3rd and 4th) which the ear translates to 'lushness', 'warmth' or 'body'. But right around 20-25% of full power the higher orders become involved. Now if these are only on transients the amp will appear to be playing with a lot more dynamic contrast and power than its low power would seem to allow.
It isn't. Its a physiological reaction to distortion.
SETs are by no means the only culprits here. Transistor amps make trace amounts of higher ordered distortion all the time. Since our ear uses these harmonics as loudness cues, our ears are very sensitive to them, so much so that it can be said that they are more sensitive to this than almost anything else. So Transistor amps can seem to be 'dynamic' too.
Now it is possible to design amplification that does not generate these types of distortions (please note that in the prior text I did include IM, as 'inharmonic' distortion). In fact you could even use an SET, but you would have to use a loudspeaker that was efficient enough that the amp did not go over 20% of output at any time.
At any rate, if you *do* have amplification that does not generate loudness cues, the first thing you will notice is that you are playing the stereo a lot louder than you might have otherwise thought. You may notice it in this way: it does not sound loud, but you have to yell to be heard by someone sitting right next to you. Put another way- if it sounds loud, that might be a bad thing- your ears simply responding to higher ordered distortions.
There are various ways you can approach this, for example making sure that the turntable is free of room-transmitted vibration and that the cartridge is tracking perfectly. This will go a long ways towards making the system impervious at high volume levels. The other thing that really seems to help is to use speakers that are reasonably efficiency. For example my speakers are 98 db 1 watt/1 meter, but I find that 30 watts really isn't enough power if I want to play things in a lifelike manner. Introduce some distortion though and 7 watts may be too much!
I opened this by saying I'm careful about the term 'dynamics': when I am referring to actual dynamic changes I use the terms 'impact', 'authority' or perhaps 'unfettered' to convey that. I'm also usually careful to say why as well, because so many audiophiles unconsciously associate distortion with dynamics.
What kind of music do you play?
