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Universal Music's Classics and Jazz label said that it is "exploring consumer demand" for unrestricted downloads in the MP3 format. Not least among Mac users, who until now were excluded from the store by its reliance on Windows Media DRM.

MP3s are encoded at the maximum 320Kbps bitrate and cost the same as the restricted 320Kbps WMA files. All users have to do is sign up to the Dress Circle, as the MP3 section of the site is known. And anyone who has already bought an album from the site will be

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offered a free upgrade to MP3.

Although Classics and Jazz describe this as an experiment, every recording in its catalogue has been encoded as MP3, from Handel's Water Music to Louis Armstrong singing What A Wonderful World.

"The online music market is evolving quickly and we want to explore the way forward thoroughly and responsibly," says Dickon Stainer, managing director of Universal Music Classics and Jazz. "By making our entire catalogue available in an open MP3 format we will have the opportunity to assess the level of demand, the effect on the wider music download market and of course whether we will have a problem with piracy."

Classicsandjazz.co.uk opened in January in response to a significant increase in downloading of jazz and classical music. The label boasts a collection of 8,000 albums, the biggest collection of classical and jazz recordings, from renowned imprints including Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Philips, Verve, Emarcy and Impulse.