Advantages of monoblocks

The ability to separate the amps and keep the speaker cables short is a simple means to increase resolution in the system. Stereo amps require longer speaker cables unless you have a small listening area.

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The whole monoblock pitch is just more audio snake oil. It
just doesn't make any sense to me. I'd never spend my money
on monoblocks.

;-)

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I am sure quality matters and you are more likely, for the same outlay, to get better quality components in a single chassis than two. Having said that, if money is no object and I am afraid it always is an object, if you are'nt a Hedge Fund Manager, then a manufacturers "Statement" Mono blocks should sound better than his stereo amp or intagrated. The best sound I have ever heard, was with Wilson Alexias and I am not a Wilson fan, with D'Agostino pre and Monoblocks, Transparent cables. Dan came over to England for the weekend to demo and talk about them, no less. I expect the speaker cable cost more than my system.

As an aside, people have mentioned short interconnects, long speaker cables, V the opposite, assuming you are using XLR's for long interconnect runs, are there theoretical reasons that mean short or long runs of either, should be better?

I've had multiple sets of monoblocks, run with both short IC/long SC and long IC/short SC, and the long IC/short SC has sounded better in all cases. In fact, my SCs now are only 18" long, which allows me to use two DIY runs of Cardas 11.5 ga copper litz in twisted pairs as my SCs, and they sound better than the expensive 3 meter SCs I had been using previously.

PS, I sold the expensive SCs and used the proceeds to buy a pair of 8 ga Northcreek inductors for my speakers, which resulted in a very nice improvement in bass clarity and detail. Trading the expensive SCs for the inductors was one of the best moves I've made to improve sound quality to date.