[Sound N00b]

This is pretty much an offshoot of my previous thread but I was hoping a dedicated thread to this would get me more direct comparisons between the archel and atom. Let me know if I am breaking head-fi posting etiquette, I am not very experienced in that. I have pretty much narrowed my choices down to the archel and the atom but can't really make the final decision. What are they differences in sound profiles? Does one beat the other out on paper (harmonic distortion, signal to noise, ect)? How important is the lack of a gain switch on the archel? How does build quality compare? Overall which one would you go for? A side note which I am not sure matters, I will not have a dac to pair my amp with while I save up some money for a nice dac.