Alan Lofft, Technical Writer

Lofft has been writing about hi-fi and video professionally for over 30 years, ever since his first syndicated newspaper column, "Sound Advice", began appearing weekly in The Toronto Star , Canada's largest-circulation daily newspaper. In the late 1970s, he became a contributing editor, columnist, and equipment reviewer at AudioScene Canada , the leading national consumer electronics magazine at the time.

He also wrote on consumer electronics for Maclean's magazine and made occasional appearances on TV on " Canada AM," the national CTV morning show, and on June Callwood's national afternoon TV talk show.

In 1983, he was appointed editor of Sound Canada magazine, which he relaunched in 1985 as Sound & Vision, incorporating video content and reviews as well as hi-fi and audio features. He also became a contributing editor to Stereo Review in New York , and an audio columnist for Music Express , a Canadian rock magazine.

An audio and electronics enthusiast from childhood, Alan began building vacuum-tube hi-fi gear for his father, who was an audiophile in the 1950s. Lofft's passion for audio continued through college, during which time he hosted and produced "On Campus", a radio show taped on location (on a portable Ampex 650 open-reel recorder) at Wilfrid Laurier University and broadcast locally in Kitchener, Ontario.

After graduation, he entered TV journalism, joining CBC television in Toronto as a production assistant and story editor for "The Day It Is", "TBA", and "The Way It Is", daily and network public-affairs TV shows produced by the late Ross McLean. He continued to work in broadcast journalism until the mid-1970s, including a period as a reporter on an evening news-hour show at CITY-TV, an innovative local Toronto TV station. Lofft moved from broadcast to print journalism with the publication of his "Sound Advice" column by The Toronto Star.

Alan was also one of the regular members of the NRC listening panel through the 1980s.

Tom Cumberland, Electronics Product Development

Tom brings more than 23 years of electronics engineering expertise and experience in strategic product development to Axiom. He is in charge of developing Axiom's new electronics products. Born in Tulsa , Oklahoma , Tom earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado . Some of the familiar brand names Tom has been associated with include the Harman Consumer Group (Director of Strategic Product Development), Alpine Electronics (amplifier design), and McIntosh, where Tom was Director of Worldwide Product Planning. Tom advised a Danish company on the development of the world's first multi-room audio system and, early in his career, was part of a design team that developed a classified device for the US Military.

He has been responsible for, or assisted in the design and engineering of, amplifiers, CD players, remote-control systems, laserdisc players, and a video projector. Tom is member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

Steve Dove, DSP Code Writing

Steve has a long history in the audio industry. He began his career by designing mixing consoles. A native of rural Oxfordshire England , Steve Dove came to professional audio by the curious paths of journalism and pirate radio. An avid constructor in his teens, he found a niche initially as a wireman (until fired for his atrocious soldering), a designer for, and later a director of Alice, a then-major manufacturer of broadcast film and recording consoles.

Through that time he was an integral part of the technical development of the burgeoning UK independent local radio network, while he maintained a parallel career engineering, providing technical and acoustic services for major rock bands, theaters, and studios worldwide. He also is a widely published author in these fields.

An independent consultant in turning everything analog into digital for many years now, his clients have included Sony Broadcast, Sure Brothers, Solid State Logic, Clair Brothers Audio, Commodore Computers, Harmon JBL, Peavey, and Wheatstone Corporation.

He lives in the hills of Eastern Pennsylvania with three cats, two goats, and a textile designer, and is a voracious ham radio operator.