Thomsun Original Cassettes - An enigma, wrapped in a mystery 

I have some Indonesian bootlegs by "Atlantic Records" (no relation to the American company of the same name) which are on BASF tape and were dubbed from vinyl. They claim to be recorded with "dbx system" but they're neither dbx nor Dolby encoded. On some of them the tape is not marked at all as to which album it contains, and the recording tabs were left intact.

Mans cracked actually 2 videos in 1 week. Love the content tony keep it up

These were sold in Jordan in the nineties . Way better recordings than what was sold in Europe and the US. I have a ton of them recorded on BASF THOMSUN

I have a lot prerecorded bootleg Thomsun original from when I visited Dubai and Kuwait to work back in 84. Good times, good videos. Keep it up tony!

It has Maxell written all over it despite being branded "Thomsun". The hubs are different, as maxell had orange clips holding the leader to the reel. But another interesting treat of a video! Hopefully there's more in store!!!👍

Thomsun is an Indian company, from Kerala, but primarily based in the UAE in the 70s and since. They still have outlets in Kerala and the UAE but they are musical instrument stores and other things. Interesting part: They started a printing company in 1980! Al Mawrid. Likely where the album covers were done. From their website: "Thomsun was established in the year 1976 in Dubai by directors Mr. K V Thomas and Mr. V T John."

Good to see you still caring about your fans Tony . Thank you !!!!

I grew up in the Middle East and spent the latter part of the 70s as well as the 80s there and I could tell you a thing or two about Thomsun. I can assure you that they used only original cassettes for their recordings. Thomsun cassettes were typically higher priced than other brands out there and they had albums on Sony, BASF as well as Maxell tapes. The company was founded by two folks from a state called Kerala in India and was based out of Dubai, if my memory serves me right. It still exists, though it has now diversified into several other businesses, such as retailing musical instruments for Yamaha. I believe that all these tapes were recorded in one of their facilities in Dubai at the time as they are consistent in their audio quality. Thomsun started out by selling Indian music on Sony cassettes and moved on to including English Music in their catalogue somewhere in the mid 80s. I have several of their tapes, all of which were bought in Muscat, Oman, in the 80s and they have stood the test of time. As to bootlegging, back in those days there weren't the kind of laws that are there today and barring the EMI label, the other big brand of cassettes sold in the Middle East was from a manufacturer called "IMD" and these recordings were on Japanese cassettes but they weren't as good as the Thomsun recordings on premium cassettes. During the 80s, these cassettes were sold at even the biggest musical stores there and were known for the quality of their recordings.

great performer! almost went into superferric territory. great to see you making videos again tony!

Thanks man! Two vids this week. Is it Christmas already?

I have a couple of prerecorded Thomsun cassettes and they sound good to me.

Well Tony, those Thomsun tapes were not only avaible with Maxell and BASF tape. There were also TDK and Sony tapes in it. To me it doesn't sound like a bootleg but, more like a record company, which had to make some deals with tape manufactures. I.E. DECCA is Philips or Deutsche Gramophoon. Also Like MFP music for pleasure in the 70's and K-tel. Polydor is in France Vogyue or Motors records. So the list goes on.

I didn’t realize i had a thomsun tape until i saw this video. I remember getting it in a dump of old blanks with a bunch of SAs, URs and XLiis (heck, even had an original TDK MA-R in there) and i looked at it and thought «hm interesting» then put it in my cassette wall. Now, looking at this mystery cassette i kinda feel special for owning one, and yes, they do sound excactly like an old UD, since i have loads of them! Great video as always

During 1980-81-82 Thomsun Electronics used Sony CHF cassettes. My father brought several of them (pre-recorded Hindi movie songs) from ABUDHABI, UAE.

I had lots of Thomsun cassettes from my years living in Abu Dhabi (1984-94). They sounded better than the original cassette versions back in the UK. I remember my Pet Shop Boys - Introspective (with extra track ‘Don Juan’) sounding particularly great.

Welcome back! Good review of this tape.

Loving the new influx of videos! keep up the good work

So I think your theory is mostly right. There's a book I have, but can't put my fingers on at the moment, which covers the cassette culture of India, which was very similar with piracy and whatnot. They cover the manufacturing process and you are correct that it was a very handmade process. It was easier for these companies to use consumer tapes and go as needed as you describe. Two points: 1) raids weren't really a concern. These were countries with lax, if any, intellectual property laws at the time. The Indian book talks alot about how the labels were ripping each other off with Bollywood releases and there wasn't anything done about it, to say nothing of Western releases. If anything was going to be prosecuted at all, it was more likely to be a native release and the western stuff the law wasn't so concerned about. (Which is why the major labels had all but given up the market and legit releases weren't available in the first place.) As long as they kept away from local market stuff, the authorities didn't really care and the labels weren't really perusing it. 2) doing things in this manner allows them to almost "print to order" and they're not stuck with unwanted inventory. The Indian book talks about how customers could come to a stall and if they didn't have a release they wanted, they'd run it off and have it next time. They also wouldn't be caught with albums that were no longer sell able. in India anyway, they had smaller duplicators but it was still a much smaller scale than what we'd think of in the West. I'm a fan of these pirated tapes so this is something I've looked into. Obviously, this isn't a field that's well documented, but I can't imagine things were too much different in other countries. (Though some of the Eastern Europe pirates, like out of Poland and Chech, seem to me more mass manufactured. I've always suspected those ran more like legit labels whereas anything I find from the Middle East or Asia seems to be very handmade.) I've never seen a blank Thomsun before. The label is exactly like the kind you'd see on their album releases. I'm guessing they had too many blanks or they were buying in such quantity that they could make a profit re-selling them. I too have always wondered about Maxell's involvement, but I'm willing to bet they either didn't know or turned a blind eye. BTW: the Thompsun Originals are some of the best quality pirates I've found. I also like the humidity proof cases they often come in.

thanks for another great overview on an obscure tape. Cheers!

Thanks for the video Tony

I acquired a number of tapes in Bahrain in the early 90s from various companies. Many of those in my collection still had their record tabs in place. Likewise, many have sound evidence that they were tape recordings of vinyl LPs (needle drops, surface noise, etc.). Types in my collection include: Maxell UD1 C-46 Maxell UD1 C-60 Maxell UDI C-90 (Length printed on package, not the shell) BASF Ferro Super IEC I (IEC 1?) C-90 (Length printed on package, not the shell) Verrox HG High Grade Ferro IEC I (IEC 1?) C-90 (Length on package, not the shell)

I had some Thomsun bootlegs that I bought at a car boot sale in the 90s. They definitely went on later than 1988 as the albums I had were "....And Justice For All" by Metallica (Released September 1988) and "Use Your Illusion I &II" by Guns N' Roses (Released September 1991). The Metallica one had 2 bonus tracks which were the main point of interest, both of which were B sides from earlier singles. The recording had been dubbed from vinyl as was made apparent by the crackles in the gaps between songs. From memory these later Thomsuns of mine were branded as THOMSUN ORIGINAL on the sleeves. The Thomsun branding on the cassette was printed in pink directly onto the plastic shell. It was a black plastic shell with a large transparent window covering the majority of it, but the left hand side from the egde to the supply spool was solid black and had wording about "Made in Japan by Maxell" printed in that area. The title of the album was on a thin paper label above the window. The hubs were either genuine Maxell of the period or excellent clones if not genuine. I don't remember what the leader tape looked like I'm afraid. A friend of mine was not only involved with, but in charge of a bootleg cassette operation in Malaysia in the 80s, and he has told me he believes that Thomsun was from Dubai, so he doesn't know a lot about them. He has explained to me all about the bootleg cassette industry in Malaysia though, and told me that it was all done at high speed from pancakes. The duplicator shells were purchased pre-assembled with leaders hanging out. He said that the job of splicing the recorded tape to the leaders and winding it into the shells was always done by ladies in the factory he oversaw. There are various brandings on the Malaysian bootlegs. They tend to have no name, just a logo. One common one was a logo of 2 footprints. Another one has a logo of a sea shell, and again no name. The sleeves for these type of bootlegs (as seems to be common with a lot of the Thomsun ones) was the square artwork scanned from the vinyl LP cover, with a solid coloured background filling the extra space of the rectangular cassette case, and the artist and album title above the image. Often the fonts of the artist or the album title were copied to be in the same style as the way they were depicted on the original album covers. Instead of the usual brittle plastic (transparent and black) cassette cases, many of them were instead supplied in translucent clamshell cases with a transparent film around them which the paper sleeve was placed behind. Reminiscent of a miniature VHS video case. These were less likely to get cracked, but had the disadvantage of not fitting in standard cassette holders.

A mystery cassette story for sure... Cool...

You have returned from the grave. Good to have you back!

Thomsun A well known brand of pirated tapes in the UAE and distributed it's pre-recorded tapes across the middle east. The cassettes were priced pretty low and decent recordings. In the 70s and 80s Thomsun recorded onto Sony CHF tapes and later shifted to maxell tapes. After the gatt agreement in 1994 the bootleg biz came to a closure. Thomsun Electronics is the official distributor of Yamaha, Bose and many other brand's in UAE and expanded into other biz...shipping and logistics.

Cool video, cool tape, cool tune !

I had a few of these prerecorded from Thailand… still remember them from my childhood days because they were outstanding recordings

Great insight buddy I have a full shelf full of these all bootleg and there sound amazing.

Great Video, exactly leveled for my taste. And what am amazing song. Thanks!

Great video as always Tony. It would be interesting to see a video on one of those Virgin tapes.

I randomly found 5 of Thomsun's prerecorded cassettes next to my local trashbin, they all had a sticker from the Dubai International Airport. It really impressed me because i live in Greece and not anywhere near the middle east.. I guess i got myself some cool cassettes

I got similar Thomson cassettes from Dubai in 1989. These were pre recorded and still play very good

When you place that Thomsun on a hard surface, it sounds very reminiscent of a 1980s Maxell.

Thomsun Electronics was an audio video recording company in Dubai, U.A.E. Although they were mainly in the pirated business, they were careful to offer maximum quality recordings at very low prices. Later, when the government made the copyright strict they could not hold on and stopped this business.

I don't have blank Thomsun cassettes so i do not know how the quality is like. But the prerecorded factory cassettes that i have sound very good to my ears.

hi my dad gave me a few cassettes of his very big collection & i’ve learned a lot from you on how to take care of them & use them correctly & all about them!

I grew up in Bahrain and yes, we only got official licensed and published cassettes from the big labels (with inlay cards) until the mid to late 1990s. I'm still trying to find out who ran this operation and from where! Thomsun Original also had a home video (VHS) business.

A lot of the Thomsun tapes coming in India with Indian vernacular music were on Sony CHF tapes. Very high quality recordings.

Very interesting indeed. When you took it apart and I saw inside, I paused the video to check some of the early Maxells I got in a recent bulk purchase. Alas, none with the diamond pattern shells. However, it seems pretty clear that these are indeed Maxell tape and, as you mention, more akin to UD than LN in performance.

An interesting video, subscribed!👍 You sound Lancashire Vic reeves

I'm afraid Tony makes a not-quite-correct assumption that someone (who?) would chase the bootleg operations (why?). In real life, as it happened in the 1990s in the former Soviet Union, the "recording studios" operated in the open. There were larger operations that imported bulk pancakes and clear duplicator shells for mass productions, and these certainly had to take precautions. But not the mom-and-pops basement with twenty akai decks, recording onto cheap retail cassettes like Sony EF or Goldstar HD. No one would even think of removing their corporate labels because, hey, who needs noname cassettes when other shops resell Sonys?

HI TONY. WE LOVE YA. TAKE CARE AND HAPPY LIVING

Hello Tony! Love your cassette comeback videos. You have a great voice to listen and your insights on the subjects are entertaining. Keep on the good work! 🙂

I recently got a vintage Transonic C60 type 0 tape - the inlay card looks almost exactly like the early 1970's era Maxell LN C90, the cassette shell is a light cream colour, and the label is yellow-white with "C60" in blue print on it - same as the Maxell except it's Transonic, 60 minute, not a 90 minute Maxell tape. I am keeping it for looks, not for quality, and I think it's from the same decade as the above-mentioned Maxell LN that it resembles. 😎

The rabbit hole goes quite deep with this one. A Google image search turned up a similar UAE made Thomsun LN46 on 45 spaces with a copy of Tears For Fears. Only difference is that there's a separate paper label stuck on top (rather crookedly) instead of a direct stamp, with a track list and the code "EN-179". Also, it seems Thomsun wasn't the only company using seemingly genuine rebranded Maxell and BASF tape. Besides Thames, other companies include Aquarius and Gamava that use variants of early to mid 80s style Maxell and BASF, and possibly other tape brands. On another note, I definitely remember coming across unbranded blank tapes in bulk from the mid 80s, which were mostly 60 minute white shell tapes, although I've seen the odd black one too. I remember because there was a local recording artist where I live that was recording and distributing his albums using his own equipment, and there was a lot of leftover blank tape which means it definitely wasn't mass produced from a pancake. Thanks for the interesting video. I'm sure there are many more mysteries like this to be explored.

thank you 🎵

I bought a deck last week and the gentleman gave me a couple of these tapes - one a-ha mix in English and the other from a Sri Lankan artist in Sinhala (I'm from Sri Lanka). A Maxell LN and UD1, they both perfectly fit your descriptions, printed labels made to look handwritten and all. Also, I noticed the codes in the top left corner read EN-1149 on the English one and CL-154 (Ceylon??) on the Sinhala language one, my theory is they had a country and release code that way. Looks like Thomsun operated across quite a few borders.

So many cool tapes

Theory is not far fetched Tony. I would love to go to a dupe facility and see how they did/do it professional like.

I have 2 of the Thomsun Ln60, best of dire straits, Skid Row, and they have By "Maxell" Dolby system and Made in Japan on em.

For some reason a lot of top companies used a different name to sell their products in third world countries, I think this is what Maxell was doing. Great video Tony.

I have such a Thomsun LN 90, same model, same j-card, just without the stamps on the white area of the labels. According to the code on the spine (J269...), it was made October 26, 1989. Your theory about the tapes being intentionally disguised as blanks is correct, somewhere in the archives of the German magazine Der Spielgel, there is a contemporary article about the bootlegging business in Asia. Around the turn of the decade 80's/90's, record companies had finally succeeded in imposing copyright laws in Indonesia. Beofre, bootlegging was not illegal over there and in some other countries, but the tapes were forbidden to be brought outside Indonesia for commercial sale. To get around this, they only stamped an unsuspicious number on the labels and sent them as blanks to mainly near/middle East countries. The j-cards with album titles were sent separately, or even printed locally, bearing the same catalogue numbers as the stamps on the tapes, and matched together with the cassettes by the local selling structures. As it was, until the end of the 80's, legal to sell "home made" copies in Indonesia, Maxell and BASF had no problem to officially sell blanks to Thomsun and other record companies. Either they were delivered in bulk without labels, or they came as complete OEM products with custom made Thomsun labels. Cheers!

Bought a Thomsun Gipsy Kings tape from a local Oxfam the other day. So strange as the recording was only playing on the right speaker plus the recording tabs were still intact. I rerecorded the album onto the tape in stereo and all now seems fine 🤔

It looks like a Maxell, sounds like a Maxell, but does it smell like a Maxell?

Never heard about them but they look and sound great

The Investigations Of Inspector Tony. We all like that :)

How about a test of the blank tapes from T.A.P.E. Muzik (hope that's the way they are written) over here in Germany (Leipzig)? They are a duplicator but they do sell blanks from time to time. I did order some chrome tapes about ten years ago (when they were still called AudioService) and they were okay, but they were loaded with NOS BASF tape. Haven't gotten up to try out the new ferrics, they got no ebay shop anymore so one has to order directly from them. Maybe I'll give them a try but I consider your ability to test them is far beyond mine.

My dad had quite a few bought second hand one of the ones was on basf tape and did have the sm mechanism now removed so i believe they are genuine brands does sound superb .I have not seen a blank one before either .

This is one of the things I really enjoy about tapes over CD and other formats, is that every tape is different in design, yet they are all fundamentally the same. Even the cases differ, like the sony slide in box or slim cases, and the Axia holding the tape butt-outwards. They tried the same thing with the CDRs that were printed with a vinyl record "label", but no other format has the variety of tapes.

I have some of the Thomsun and Maxwell cassettes as well. Maybe i should make a review of those?. A record company called vikings used a lot of the maxwell tapes. The quality is good on the tapes. Nice review, best regards: C 110.

Those hubs are standard for the last black shell LNs and the first gen SLNs from Maxell

If anything, I gotta give our boy Tony kudos for that hustler mentality.

just Pioneer

Interesting subject, i ad buy ‘ (In France) a few of them. I found very good records and others not so much... they usually keep the save recording tabs intact, and they use multiples tape shells

As far as I can tell, Maxell made their own Minidiscs but also supplied exactly the same discs with other branding such as WH Smith. So, my guess is that Maxell manufactured the tapes with other branding on them.

cool!

Just a theory, since you mentioned that certain countries didn't have access to mainstream releases until the 90s, maybe they were a genuine company that bought in pancakes in mass from many different manufacturers (maybe b-grades) in the 80s to give access to those markets. It would've been very profitable for sure. In regards to regulation, perhaps the Maxell's and BASF's couldn't do anything about it back then as they didn't have any operations there in general

Another excellent and fascinating video. I hope you find more treasures soon. In the 80s my uncle used to get bootleg films on vhs with Arabic subtitles. In contrast the quality of those was very shit.

Would be interesting to know what source was used to make the Thompsun Originals as everyone has said the quality is excellent generally better than the authentic UK pre recorded tapes.

Tony. The one I have has the same appearance, but the title looks like it has been printed. It says the tape is UD1.

I just bought a bunch of these fpr a dollar each, boyght them because of the dark tape itself that looks like a type 2 chrome yet the shell says type 1 which is bs, especially after testing them on my deck. The cases on them are weird soft one piece plastic that is heat resistant apparently and the cassette slots into the other side to a usual case. Very decent quality on the few I tested!! I bought them as they were obviously chrome type 2's for a dollar each was cheap for me to tape over!

awesome brother!! man i'm so happy your still making content on cassettes-it's very much needed for the tape community and you an expert and very experienced and a leading authority as far as i'm concerned. i'm 54yo and live here in the US and have loved and used(still use from time to time) cassette as long as i can remember. of course back in the day when we we young and didn't have money we made our own mix tapes and recorded right off of the radio-lol. and i always made dubs of my vinyl records on a quality Type II tape for playing in my car and home systems as well so i wouldn't wear out or damage my vinyl collection. i still to this day dub some of my records. i always had a hard time convincing some of my friends back in the day that a decent quality 3-head deck would produce great sound quality and i still believe even today some will sound as good or better than a regular "red book" compact disc. i made a lot of them true beleivers after playing some cassettes in a 3-head deck ,granted, sound quality and soundstage is very different from each individuals personal taste and hearing. but yeah, your my go to source for learning about all of these one-off or not as well known cassette tapes/brands that were never as common here in the states and i have always enjoyed that learning aspect of your channel brother- keep up the great work and thank you as always my friend!!!, Jerry

I'd pit my old Thomsun's against any current cassette release. They still sound good here. I don't care if they were bootlegs but they were dirt cheap.

Thomsun was a company produces pre - recorded cassettes during 80s and 90s.These are not exact albums those were released by the original record producer. It's like mixed tapes. They have used almost all the brands who produce blank tapes (like TDK, Maxell, Sony, BASF etc). But these recordings were superb. There were lots of other companies produced music cassettes from Indonesia (some are Atlantic Records, Audio Masters, Contessa, Gold Lion etc). They also used high quality tapes from BASF, Maxell...etc. But those were very good. Mostly sold in the middle east.

Was Maxell not allowed to sell in (in that name ) in some countries due to contract distribution deals with other companies

I have several of these, often containing slightly rearranged tracklisting (e.g. putting a hit single first) or adding 12" mixes to them, not present on the "proper" album.

These are the type of videos I love. By the way, back in the late 80s, I had a copy of Pet Shop Boys, Introspective on a Thomsun tape 😁

thats an AGFA 90! same colour same case i have the exact one

How is it possible that the tape sounds better than the source- at least through RU-vid on an iPad.

You cant sell these on ebay as you will get a suspension of your account. I have several hundred recordings from when I lived in the middle east and they are really good quality.When I tried selling them on ebay I got a warning then the second time I got a seven day supension and a warning of being blocked forever. So beware of the ebay police

Coincidentally I was rummaging through some of my storage boxes and came across a Thomsun branded cassette holder/carrier and was pondering for a moment on the origin of the name.

We want more info about the BBC cassettes.

That is a beautiful deck. Do you have any Yamaha decks? If not, they are built pretty solid. All their stuff is. My go to VCR is an 86 Yamaha and it’s a sweet machine, very hard to find here in the US

Perhaps the copies/bootlegs were for mail order and produced on demand, as they couldn't be sold legally? A difference I did notice between this and the Maxell tapes: no (R) mark in the Maxell name the font may be a little different too? (The BASF one you showed did have a (R) mark). Two other things of note: it could be that the name is pronounced TH (as opposed to TOM). And maybe Div could also be pronounced as D-I-V (as in D Ivy)?). But these are just thoughts and may be totally wrong on my part. (That tune reminded me a bit of the 70's song by the French group Space, just saying!).

Well, when it comes to Maxell, you can expect one thing from them, top-of-the-line quality. You can never go wrong with Maxell. Whether it is portable speakers for your smartphone, headphones, or the digital medium. I have a lot of stuff from Maxell, and all of them are terrific. I never had issues with them. Even those UR from Korea and Malaysia are a tad better than TDK T1 or modern D.

Thomsun had to be under license by Maxell in order to make those cassettes.

LOL KTS bootlegs used them briefly. We used to find them at record shows in the NE USA. KTS Italy.

This tape is coloring the music more than most o the tape you normally feature. It's adding bass. I would call it "muffled" but it sounds good and not muffled and the ear adjusts (when switching from source to tape) after a second and you no longer notice it.. Strange. Maybe it's just the song. I'm posting this at 10:45

a decent tape anyway people who work in saudi arabia in the 80's,heyday of tapes,a lot of these thomsun basf,tdk and maxell tapes which are recorded in indonesia

I see you have VHS tapes in the storage you're not using.

i have a ACE OF BASE album on a maxell brnaded thomsun cassette

Sorry for pointing out the typo, my friend... ENGIMA😆🤘

I have a ton of prerecorded ones and no idea what they are but they look like bootlegs so always thought they were

Looks like an early Maxell cassette to me 🤨

Everywhere here in the Philippines. Doesn't sound that bad, though.

Good to see you making videos again. DivKid was originally Ben Wilson and his musician friend Andy. He explains it to Mylarmelodies, Tony: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K-HlZABJrvI.html

does it smell like maxell?

Quero ver o teste das fitas da marca Gradiente, do Brasil.

Serial number this cassette please?

Wow and flutter sounds very low on that aiwa