Center Point Stereo (CPS) does the impossible; delivering a 300 degree sound field from a single cabinet with rich, vibrant and natural sound, and a stereo “sweet spot” seemingly everywhere!

Today, musicians produce stereo recordings with stereo instruments and stereo effects. I am sure you can’t remember your last mono recording. Stereo is a must have for audio recordings, but no musician could even dream of “producing” stereo in their live performances until now. CPS has made that dream come true.

Drew Daniels and Aspen Pittman discovered the secret behind making stereo work for live performance, and were awarded US and International patents for their unique CPS technology. The Fender Musical Instrument Corp. (FMIC) immediately licensed for their award winning Acoustisonic SFX amp, and has produced no less than 4 CPS (SFX) products under this license since 2000.

Guitar World first hailed the Fender SFX Acoustisonic amp, saying: “Suddenly, you’re swimming in the sound of your guitar.”

It was the first of many such endorsements. You can see our user endorsement pages for more but for now let’s talk about how and why CPS works.

Like most great solutions that make “broken” things work, it’s pretty simple. But to fully understand this groundbreaking technology, we need to understand why the old way does not work.

The Old Way

Conventional stereo involves two loudspeakers, spaced apart, for reproducing the right and left channels. The physical separation between the speakers determines the “sweet spot,” which is usually a small area somewhere in the center of the intersection of the separated sound from the speakers. This may be work well enough in your living room, but in live performances, it means that less than 5% of the audience, and 0% of the performers can actually hear the stereo image.

The result, in live performance, is that bands simply perform in mono under the theory that it's better to hear all of sound in mono than half of the sound in stereo.

The CPS Way

CPS changed everything; like bringing color to black & white, and working magic for performer and audience alike. It performs 3D stereo miracles for keyboards, guitars, drums and vocals. There is nothing else that comes close, because nothing else works like it.

CPS electronically encodes the left and right input signals into front and side output signals.

These front & side signals can be amplified by any common stereo amp (tube or SS) to drive the special CPS front & side single-speaker cabinet. This cabinet design positions the 2 front & side speakers at 90 degrees from each other (right angles).

The front speaker gets the SUM (or common) content of the left and right signals (whatever appears in both signals). The side speaker gets the DIFFERENCE (or uncommon) content of both the left and right signals (whatever is different from these signals). The technical term for this circuit is a "Sum and Difference network," as popularized in the MS (Mid/Side) stereo recording process. It is accomplished by combining the L&R in out-of-phase fashion, so these are electronically out-of-phase signals when finished. Keep that in mind for later.

So now these electronically out-of-phase signals will be amplified and reproduced from speakers at 90 degrees from each other. In other words, speakers that are technically “out of phase,” so when played at similar volumes in a live soundfield the two acoustical signals CANNOT MIX.   Thus, they arrive at your ears unaffected from each other “unmixed.”   Your brain then mixes these signals and presto -- you hear stereo!

Technically speaking, the CPS solution creates a “spatial vortex”, which works to keep the signals separate, and the stereo effect intact. The 3D stereo soundfield will never collapse to mono, no matter where you are in the room. CPS stereo even goes all over the stage for the musicians, while the EXACT stereo mix goes around corners and through doorways into other rooms to reach their audience without losing its stereo soundfield. This making playing live a pure pleasure again, because the players hear exactly what their bandmates hear, and it’s also exactly what the audience is hearing. It sounds too good to be true, but CPS delivers this magical effect every time to open-jawed performers and audiences alike!

Once you've heard Center Point Stereo you'll never use mono or "the old way"again!

Thaddeus Hogarth, an influential East Coast performer wrote:

“I finally got to use this SFX Spacestaton MK2 on a solo gig two weeks ago ... vocals and acoustic guitar. Simply put, I was bloooown away!! This unit is one of the most incredible innovations in performance technology. The sound filled the entire room and as a result the audience was so intensely engaged and silent at one point, that I had to open my eyes and look up to see if they were still there!!

The stereo imaging throughout the room is simply magical...I find myself plugging in, playing and walking around trying to decipher this feeling of sound floating around my head in stereo no matter where I walk in the room. Congratulations on yet another excellent product. I swear you cats at GT are making products that are way ahead of the curve...”

Currently CPS is only available by purchasing the Fender SFX Acostisonic amps, as the GT Spacestation MK2 is out of production until we find a new licensee to distribute the box.  But... we are working hard with several other amp manufactures to release new CPS licensed products. Please see our CPS/SFX product archives to get an idea of the many uses for this technology.

CPS GROOVE TUBE PRODUCTS                 FENDER SFX PRODUCTS

* SFX is a special Fender trademark that appears on all Fender made products under license from CPS. SFX was also used on most of the Groove Tubes and products separately developed and manufactured prior to the sale of the Groove Tubes brand and product line to Fender in 2008.