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

This is why there is home theater and two channel audio for music. Completely different experiences. 
 

While it is true live concert hall venues have reflections from the sides and behind… the degradation of signal by incorporating all those extra channels are generally not worth it. So two channel audio is by far the best for music… concerts.

Movies… bullets flying behind… 5 or more channels sound great. You are distracted by the video so you don’t knotice the poorer sound quality. 
 

I have a separate 2 channel audio and home theater… you can see them under my UserID.

OP,

Many people are not looking for natural… or recreating live music… they are looking for adrenaline creating rush of sound… maybe great details or slam. I was strongly influenced by these things. But I found one genera of music would sound better at the expense of others.

This started me questioning what I was looking for (yes I remember the quest for the absolute sound). So, about 25 years ago I started listening to real instruments (acoustical) in all settings, and listening really carefully. It was not until I got season tickets to the symphony, and listened every couple weeks did I realize I was completely out in space.

This caused me to completely change course. I abandoned my planar speakers first and then my solid state equipment. Over this time my system’s character has changed completely… to natural and musical.

Unfortunately, the Oregon Symphony, which I have 8th row season tickets has implemented a sophisticated DSP sound system, and while my system sounded very close to the real orchestra… now my system sounds better. Hopefully symphony hall DSP sound systems will not become popular because it has destroyed the incredible sound of over a hundred wonderful musicians. Obviously I will not be renewing as my home system sounds better. Why would I want to pay $3K / year and drive down to hear an inferior sound system

Anyway, a tangent. But, it depends on what you value. Are you truly trying to create the real musical experience? Or a souped up driving sound spectacular?

Since I have achieved the endpoint I desired… all music genera sound great… and in getting here each benefited from  each upgrade instead of one benefiting and others not.