Hat's a professor. Heed his advice.
I recently auditioned a Yamaha RXV1800 which is clearly no slouch, the surround was very nice (busted out my energy act5's), but I simply couldn't countenance the musical performance. Then I tried an Onkyo 905 which was 'bout the same for surround I guess maybe better if anything, my 5.1 speakers aren't so good so I can't overly critique that, but again I was appalled and the tinny music coming out of the B posts. So THEN I went back to yamaha and tried an RXV3900, still no dice! Although quite an improvement on the first two. I've gotta say... even when fielding fairly high-hitting surround amps from a mainline manufacturer... I think they do stereo about as well as absolute entry-fi.
Long story short, if your focus is albums, 5.1-3.1=STEREO.