Realizing them takes capital. This is a critical factor for many innovators.
PS Audio is clearly innovative and they make great equipment. In terms of their developing galvanic-isolation, aka Air-Gap, it stemmed from their continued work on their upcoming Octave music server according to Paul. The galvanic-isolation feature in their PerfectWave SACD Transport would appear to be borrowed from their transport drive supplier Marantz.
As I have understood it for years, the issue is to reduce or exclude electrical noise from entering your DAC, which is why Marantz made the point that the SA-10 galvanically isolated the transport and DAC for those using it as a standalone DAC. It is also why some don’t like usb, as it carries 5v.
The Melco N1Z server, their premium product, achieved complete isolation using a light-emitting diode in the ethernet signal path. That product goes back to 2015.
Andrew Everard reviewed that server and in June 2015 published this article, how to get galvanic isolation using optical cable a lot cheaper. On reading the article, I implemented it, and still use it between my modem and server.
The data connection from my server to my streamer/DAC is a CAT6a cable, which again offers isolation as it does not carry power. There is also an isolation transformer on the RJ45 data output socket. This is a feature on the Melco N1Z, which has been adopted by Innuos and a few others.
I have no idea what is new about the Octave server, but several types of “Air” (optical?), CAT, galvanic isolation have been around at least since 2015, if not longer, in some very popular devices.