I was looking over my Magic Pulsar and it occurred to me that one of the things that contributes to the reel noise it the fact that the handles are open and they are right next to the stepper motors. There's nothing to block the sound at all, it's just open right to the motors. I wonder if some sound absorbing plugs / covers would help much.

I also found it curious that in the situation that started this thread, the noise traced back to the motor control rather than the motor itself. I haven't tried swapping the wires on mine yet, but if there is something going on with the controller, I wonder if we could make a "filter" that could eliminate whatever signal is causing the noise.