hey i was giving my ipod to a friend of mine that just came from another country. It syncs perfectly but then when i tried to listen to something the sound came out much to quite. its the ipod with the sensors the 2nd generation
It's meant to level out all your sound so all the tracks are roughly the same volume. In practice it usually makes everything a lot quieter.
Newer iPods also have a sound output setting you can change which affects the maximum volume the iPod can attain. Depending on the country you lent the iPod to, this may have been cut back a notch or two.