I think an audiophile is concerned with reproducing the sound of live acoustic music (TAS). The multi-channel systems I have heard easily beat two channel systems in many respects, sounding especially alive and three-dimensional. Cost and space is a problem for me, but if I had a larger listening room and hit the lotto, I would definitely get a SOTA multi-channel audio system. Two channel can only do so much. JGH was a big fan of multi-channel audio BTW.