Stereo, from the Greek stereos meaning 'solid' was added to 'phone' -- also from the Greek, meaning 'sound' or 'voice' -- to indicate the fullness or sensation of three dimensions from the sound. It didn't originally refer to only two channels, but because recordings began with two channels, corresponding to our ears, it was the adopted term for most polyphonic recordings.
The V40 is nice, but you could probably get the V35 for a good bit less and have pretty much the same features.