Digital Content Pricing - Pay-For-Quality?

The Digital Music Weblog, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs, noted today that the Philadelphia Orchestra has started to price discriminate for digital music, based on the quality of the recording.

• Compressed versions of major works are sold for $5. Entire concerts sell for $10.
• Lossless formats are sold for a premium.
• Files do not come with any DRM.

I think that this is a great approach for marketing and selling music. Outside classical music though, fans are much less concerned with the sound quality of the file - so not too many people would be willing to pay a premium for lossless formats.

However, recording companies could distribute poor-quality (radio-quality?) tunes for free so people can really judge whether they like & listen to the music. Then, when they want something good to listen to on their iPod/car/etc., they can pay for the upgrade to higher quality songs. It could be a great way to generate some buzz!