Alan Lofft was, for 13 years, Editor in Chief of Sound & Vision, Canada's largest and most respected audio/video magazine. He edited Sound & Vision (Canada) until 1996, when he moved from Toronto to New York to become Senior Editor at Audio magazine.
Lofft has been writing about hi-fi and video professionally for over 20 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.
From a musically talented family (both his parents played violin and piano), Alan spent a period of time as a professional singer and musical theater performer on Canadian and American stages. He played the title role in the US National company of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" and, in Canada, in the Charlottetown Festival production of the musical "Turvey", where Lofft also played the title role. He continues to live in New York city but maintains a solid connection to Canada with family in Toronto and a summer home on an island in Georgian Bay.