OR-0023
Salo Oy
Salo, Finland · 1991 – c. 2004
Ser. CU-9426-0173
1994 · effect
Issued as VST3 · AU
Restored 2025 from 1994 hardware.
Salo 3310 — Full-Rate GSM Codec
Salo 3310 · Full-Rate voice codec · restored from unit no. CU-9426-0173 · Salo Oy, Salo, Finland, 1994
The restorer's note
This is the voice of a 1994 mobile call — the codec that made distance vanish and, in the same stroke, gave it that half-swallowed, faintly underwater grain. The restored unit came off a decommissioned Nordic carrier's test bench, its panel still tacky with a shift sticker. The watery quality is the RPE-LTP algorithm working exactly as designed. We have not clarified it; clarity was never the assignment.
Acquisition
Prices are exclusive of tax. Customers in a country that charges VAT or sales tax will be liable at the rate set by that country; the relevant amount is added at checkout to the purchase price.
The plate
Listening
Listening
Demonstration recordings, prepared at the bench.
The call, filtered
The note is read dry for six seconds; the full-rate codec then takes the line. What arrives is the 1994 call — half-swallowed, faintly underwater, exactly as designed.
0:00 / 0:30
Eight generations down
Degrade is walked from nought to full — one encode generation stacking toward eight — and at twenty-four seconds Rate drops to Half. Distance accumulates.
0:00 / 0:30
A bad line
A bad line, assembled deliberately: Half rate, handset Noise, adjacent-channel Crosstalk, and DTX swapping each pause for comfort noise.
0:00 / 0:30
The exhibit
The exhibit.
