"We weren't going to approach it until we could do it with 115dB of dynamic range," said director of European technical support, Luke Jenks. "It's not just a management system; it's also a line driver. So if you put it across your system, it has to perform at low output levels without noise, and at high output levels without clipping. That's where you really need the dynamic range. We have a huge stake in what happens after the DSP stage, so we only embarked on this once we were satisfied that the technology was up to the audio challenge."
This is met by the 96kHz, 32-bit processors on board the Galileo, together with the 24-bit A-D and D-A. Having reached this target, Meyer set about designing a custom motherboard as a basis for the digital engine itself, and this has all the features you would expect from high-pass filters to gain and delay. Additionally, Galileo 616 incorporates algorithms from all of Meyer's previous analogue processing equipment, including 10 CP-10 filters per output channel.
Other filters allow for what the spec' calls 'Low Frequency Beam Steering', although Jenks approaches that description with caution. "Beam steering implies that you're taking a beam and moving it from one place to another, but what we're really interested in is optimizing low frequency coverage to match high frequency coverage. Galileo uses all-pass filters to provide per-frequency delay, which means that we get a much deeper level of control over time alignment in the lower frequencies."
As well as providing an interface with SIM 3, Galileo (pictured above) builds upon the LD-3 line driver's ability to apply environmental control through array compensation - having tested the air for HF transmission. In fact, there are 194,000 HF presets on board to deal with combinations of temperature, humidity and air pressure, so it would be weird weather indeed that baffled the system beyond practical use. Finally, at full stretch Galileo uses only 20% of its DSP power, so it represents a platform for highly significant future development.
