TSI Company Profile Page

Getting Started
Tape Specialty opened its doors on May 1st, 1976. Starting with a staff of 6 people, blank tape loading and small duplication jobs were the order of the day. Slowly, equipment was purchased for the mastering of tapes for duplication, the application of labels to the tapes, and for shrink wrapping the tapes. As more music cassette customers came to TSI, there was a need upgrade the duplication equipment. Joe Martinson of Martinsound, and Dale Manquin, working as independent contractors, were contracted to build a state of the art duplication machine. Martinsound is a recording studio in Alhambra, California. Joe Martinson, inventor of the Neve "Flying Faders", used a computer aided design for the playback and record amplifiers on the master transport. This was in 1978, and Martinson was far ahead of anyone else in this field. Dale Manquin was one of the engineers who designed and built endless loop master transports for the attractions at Disneyland. In 1980, they needed a duplication house to send their clients to. Joe decided that if he were sending "his" clients for duplication at TSI, TSI must provide a quality product. Hence, his motivation in designing a great bin loop duplication machine.

Investing in New Equipment
1982 brought in several new pieces of equipment such as additional duplication machines, an on the shell cassette imprinter, more mastering equipment, and faster tape loading machines. In 1987 we added automatic shrink wrapping. In 1990, with the country in a recession, we made some decisions which made us a much stronger company. We added computers and streamlined work order techniques. We took control of our raw material inventory instituting the "just-in-time" method. Business took an upswing.

TSI Successfully Markets Compact Discs
Compact discs, audio and CD-ROM, became a product that we felt comfortable in selling to our existing cassette accounts. Profits were going right back into the operation for the purchase of advanced machinery and the development of automated material handling. We computerized our shipping department, and started a warehouse and fulfillment system for shipping out smaller orders for our clients who did not want to spend their time in line at the UPS building. In 1995 we purchased a Sonic Solutions CD Pre-Mastering Workstation. In 1996 we invested in an automated compact disc packaging machine. Also in 1996, compact discs grew to 25% of TSI’s overall sales.

Cassettes Strong in 1998
Reaffirming our commitment to audio cassettes, we purchased our first Digital Bin duplication system. This allows the audio tracks to stay in the digital format all the way until the transfer to cassette tape. With Dolby HX Pro on our recorders, and the state of the art duplication system, TSI is now among the worlds’ best duplication companies. We believe with this new duplication system, as well as our very strong customer service department, and our competitive prices, the next 10 years will be good years for Tape Specialty, and our clients.