IIRC the multi's for Five Leaves are/were missing, so unless they've been found, or this is an upmix/unwrap job like the Treasury SACD, I can't see it being 5.1 myself.. but it would be lovely if it were a genuine 5.1 remix from the multi's and a good one at that.
Amazon.de are still showing Nov 15th on Nick Drake & Beck so shouldn't be too long now before somebody gets them and reports back on the exact 5.1 status of the pair of them.
The Queen & Tommy discs are a farce.. Queen because of the terrible 5.1 mastering and Tommy because you can still get the DVDA & SACD in plenty of places.. the Beck makes sense as the old DVD-A & SACD are pricey & hard to get now.
If there were more of these new HFPA BDA's along those lines with 5.1's of titles now in demand/rare (I'm thinking things like T-Rex "Electric Warrior", Matt Bianco "Matt's Mood", The Carpenters "Singles", Frampton Comes Alive, John Hiatt "Bring The Family", Natalie Cole "Ask A Woman Who Knows" and in an alternate universe The Cardigans "Long Gone Before Daylight", Texas "Careful What You Wish For", Keane's "Hopes & Fears"..) they'd be flying off the shelves!
On that kind of tangent, in amongst the slew of French artists released on the "format" by UMG already, I'm surprised there hasn't been an HFPA BDA of anything by "Era" yet.. 2 SACDs (a best of + DVD and "The Mass" album) great examples of surround, popular acts, the "Mass" SACD hard to find now for ok money.. another no-brainer.
If Universal do read any of this stuff out there, take note! I see Calogero 3 is forthcoming on HFPA.. wanna bet there's no 5.1 on it as there was on the old SACD..!?
