There is little point to considering "sensor dynamic range" in isolation. We record images with whole cameras. A camera is a system, and every system I've ever worked with is only as good as its weakest point. In photography, with recent cameras, that weak point is seldom the sensor. It's usually the image processing.

Since part of the photography system can be outside of the camera (computer, monitor, calibrator, software, printers, profiles, etc.), it makes sense to focus on that, too, when you're striving to maximize *apparent* dynamic range.

Silver halide photographic paper reflects about 90% of the light falling on it, under the best of circumstances. Out of an 8-bits per channel image, a range of values somewhere between 12-242 and 18-236 is all we see reflected from most papers. That's around 5 f/stops. But with 12-15 stops of range possibly recorded in raw data, what do we do with the other 7-9 stops?

The answer is found in the various sliders in post-processing software. Detail that is "burned out" or "plugged up" in an out-of-camera JPEG may be there in a raw file of the same image. When that is the case, much of it can be "recovered" (tonally compressed to the point we can see it within the range of brightness that the paper or screen can reflect or transmit). Of course, it is possible to make an awful mess of an otherwise good image, by over-applying adjustments. And unless the monitor is properly capable, calibrated, and profiled, adjusting images at all may well do more harm than good.

So take dynamic range analysis of sensors with a grain of salt. In the final analysis, most PEOPLE don't give a rat's patoot what camera a photographer used, or whether it was film or digital, or whether it was full frame or smaller. They care about the art, or the communications value, or the emotional impact of the image. If it speaks to them in a way that has the photographer's intended effect, who cares?

Most of the spec wars don't amount to anything tangible unless we're making HUGE prints on 8-14 color inkjet printers, on really exotic, archival, museum grade papers. That can be important in the world of landscape photography, or point-of-purchase advertising, or copying artist's renderings from paper or canvas. But for the rest of us making 16x20 and smaller prints, or just viewing our images on screens, it's a fairly moot point.

Very good points! It will also show up more or less with the actual output of the image. The visual output of the LCD panel or the Aluminum print seems to show more range than a paper print! Is it Glossy, Luster or Matt paper is also a factor.

My suggestion is to do what Ansel taught us, decades ago. PREVISUALIZE the final image of your photograph BEFFORE you shoot, then compose, expose, process, and produce (print) the image you saw in your minds eye to the best of your ability. This is so much easier to do now since you don't have to work with hundreds of memorized combinations of formulas for film - paper - light, etc. that was required in the old days. All you need to do now is properly expose your previsualized image, then process it with sliders that will show you the output as you manipulate that recorded image to match what your mental image is.

If you don't have a good Vision of what you are creating BEFORE you shoot, the best you can hope for is a nice snap shot of time as a result. Plan and work for a work of ART instead.

Read some interesting explanations provided by some of our Hoggers here. One aspect that I have often wondered about is how all this fabulous dynamic range provided by the best digital cameras is captured in what we can view as a picture on photographic paper, steel plates, or just on computer monitors. And compared to what we used to expect from various photographic films. I used to worry about what kind of capture I could produce with reversal films since most had rather narrow dynamic range. Kodachrome was the widest and Ektachrome was very narrow. Even today, how much of the dynamic range captured in camera is able to be produced on a print coming from an ink jet printer or photographic paper. Or for that matter, how much dynamic range can be shown on an iPad or iPhone screen since that seems to be the most used viewing option used today. I have never seen a discussion along these lines. Maybe some of the professionals here could elaborate on that subject.

You may not realize this but the term "dynamic range" is ambiguous in this context.

Dynamic range is a generic term that is a logarithm of the ratio of a high value and a low value.
In photography that logarithm is usually base 2 (EV or stops).
Sometimes it's base 10 (dB or decibels, for example audio specs).

The high value is the "brightest" signal that can be recorded.
But there are some fine points regarding linearity and where the Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) clips which we will ignore.

The low value is not always the same thing.

I call the dynamic range of an individual pixel on the sensor Engineering Dynamic Range (EDR).
"Engineering" because this is the type of value you might find on a sensor specification sheet.
The low value in this case is read noise. Read noise is the standard deviation of the signal recorded in the absence of light.

DxOMark screen dynamic range is EDR.

DxOMark print dyanmic range (also Landscape score) is EDR that has been normalized as if the sensor is 8MP

PhotonsToPhotos Photographic Dynamic Range (PDR) uses a different criteria to establish the low value.
That criteria incorporates the Circle Of Confusion (COC), standard viewing conditions, and a minimum Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).

Note that this is scene dynamic range as captured in the linear raw data.
After the power function (gamma) and a tone curve the dynamic range is compressed into a smaller range.
So it's entirely possible to take 14 stops of linear dynamic range and produce a 10 stop (for example) output image.

Also note that except for EDR these measures are independent of pixel size.
Pixel size has very little affect on dynamic range per unit area.

Answers are too complicated...

The dynamic range is simply the exposure latitude you can use before you blow one extreme, highlight or dark. The range is a number between 10/16 at the moment. +-5/+-8. The greater the number the better.

The dynamic range is related to luminosity, not color rendition*.

To exploit the full DR of a camera one needs to use raw. A JPG out of a camera will benefit from the camera native dynamic range but will not offer the potential edit that the raw format does.

There is a relation between the sensor element size (density) but this is not of any interest here.

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* Some will dispute that. A correctly exposed capture colors will not suffer from the lack of dynamic range. The color simply will not have the same shade variations.

See my answers, above this post. Inkjet prints on the finest papers with the finest printers and pigment inks can approach 7 stops of dynamic range, but only if you view the prints under intense illumination.

8-bit monitors are limited to about 6 stops. 10-bit monitors can approach 8 stops.

Making digital reproductions of Kodachrome by macro-photographing slides to raw files and post-processing them can put more details on paper prints than any optical process (Cibachrome, Kodak reversal, Kodak internegative, etc.). I know this because I've used all these methods with the same slides. Unfortunately, my Ektachrome slides made before about 1998 are all faded to cyan/blue! Only my Kodachromes and my late uncle's 1950s Anscochromes still look good.