13.2, 5.1 and so on. "the best seat in the house"

@deadhead1000 

Actually I went through the same song and dance until I bought an integrated amp with a home theatre bypass option. This allows a AVR that has the ability to pre out the front channels separately to use the integrated to power the front left and right speakers in a 5.1 system.

Best of both worlds.

@jusam 

When you get a system that replicates a live performance start a new thread. Until that happens it is ALL BS. Everyone buying it, everyone selling it KNOWS it ain't a live performance. It is simply how you like your BS served, with two speakers or 22, take your pick.

When you got 22 speakers you serve your BS in stereo, surround sound, or immersive. When you only got two speakers you got no options, take your BS straight up and that's all she wrote. 

I get a glimmer of reality when my wife plays piano, beyond that LOL.

FWIW, I watch concerts recorded in high definition in Dolby Vision on my 120 inch screen while I am listening in 9.2.7 immersive audio and I still know its BS. Good luck with two speakers pointed at your head, you can smell that BS from a mile away with your eyes closed. At least I can see what they were doing when it wasn’t BS and an actual live performance.

It gets better with apps. There is an app called Plex (look it up) that serves up channels that play concerts (about 10 channels of various genres) FREE, 24/7. Some of the perfomances were recorded in the fifties (Lionel Hampton, Miles, sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, etc) and it has stuff all the way through today. With two channel it would be flat, upmixed to immersive it is at least a little closer to a non BS environment. Qwest TV is also available on platforms like Roku. You should check it out for some free "glorified TV" BS:

https://qwest.tv

A lot depends upon the recording.  Some Multichannel mixes are done vey well, with just a bit of reflection in the rears with a significant gain in ambience.  Try the Pittsburgh Symphony Brahms cycle led by Marek Janowski on the Pentatone label.

The RCA Living Stereo mixes are interesting in 3.0, because many times these are old familiar recordings that were originally recorded in3 channels and then down mixed to 2 channel.