[s-cars] iPod questions... NAC

[djdawson2 at aol.com]

Fortunately, a few hours before this latest snowstorm here in CO, I bought an iPod.  Since being stuck in my house for the past 2 days, it seemed like a good time to load the 200ish CDs that I have.
 
My questions...
 
When you load a CD into the computer, it indicates its size.  In most cases somewhere between 300 and 700MB.  Let's say an average CD is 500MB, or 1GB for every 2 CDs... right?  That would make it *seem* like the 80GB iPod capable of storing about 160 CDs.
 
After finally getting them all loaded, I notice that the iPod is only indicating a bit over 10GB of space used.  This leads me to believe that there is some significant compression going on in the background.  If this is the case, a degree (or several) of sound degradation should be expected, right?
 
I've always liked the idea of an iPod, particularly for the car.  However, I've always wondered about the signal quality that could be expected coming out of the iPod, and going into a high end car audio system.  What is the quality?  I have been unable to find any info WRT real specs... signal to noise ratio, distortion, frequency response, dynamic range, etc...  Has anyone ever stumbled across such info on the iPod and its output signal?
 
Thanks,
Dave
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