well thats not entirely true, but I didnt mention this before as we start wandering into deeper waters,
there is 2 (portable) devices that will take digital out from the ipod/iphone one I cant remember the name of currently and the other is the cypherlabs algorythm solo, which is similar to the D10 in functionality, in that it has a reclocking asyncronous dac and a headphone amp, but it also contains the apple authentication hardware as matt macbeth used to do work for apple and has the rights to this function, so it will accept a digital input from the ipod. it also has digital passthrough on spdif. the catch is its not available yet. there are various home and car docks that can do this and sounds like your car is one of them, is it pioneer? but regardless this will not help you with your portable rig.
it is also not USB, the dock has an authentication chip that negotiates with the ipod for it to relinquish the copy protection and output digital audio via i2s over the dock connector at the bottom of the ipod.
otherwise, yes any signal you get from the dock will be analogue and the dac in the D10 of no use, only the amp section would be utilized, so unless you also plan to use it with a laptop or something, you would get more amp for your money buying an amp only portable
Edited by qusp - 10/29/10 at 8:17am