Hi Sam,
A transformer of itself will do nothing for noise. These things are useful only where there are very long interconnects from the source in a noisy environment; the classic situation is a rock venue or studio, with lots of lights and high power spikes floating around.
If your interconnects are more than 3 metres, if you have a noisy electrical environment (dimmers, strong lights, a few 500W amps, perhaps a 5Kw electric motor or two), then you have a good case. But you will need a balanced source, and balanced lines. Then you can use the transformer with balanced input and single ended output; this will obviate the input cap on the front of the AKSA but it will add transformer distortions which are not the same as capacitor distortions - usually greater. The Jensen is an excellent trafo, a standard in the recording and pro-audio industries. I have one courtesy of a very kind Doctor in California, but they are only noise reducing components if used in a noisy environment with a balanced source and properly loaded coaxial, balanced lines. Domestic high fidelity systems are not generally located in noisy environments and in this scenario there is no perceived benefit.
Hope this is helpful,
Cheers,
Hugh
