I would have been more concerned about the Atom's plastic case -except a few months before buying my Atom - I started using a Hagermann Bugle phono -preamp. The factory built version comes in a molded clear plastic case. Given decades of experience with phono stages -my eyebrows definitely went up when I saw this ??? The Bugle is very quiet -not the very most silent I own -but darn good and really impressive for the bucks spent on it. So I bought the ATOM and I find this to be really dead quiet - at least as quiet as my O2 in my system or the Benchmark headphone stage built into my DAC-3HGC. I think the real question has already been asked : Anyone had noise problems with a ATOM yet ?