[declnz]

> But then I've got some scripts that maintain a copy of that collection, except converted to MP3 at a variable bitrate

Yes. I have / had been doing this for years, and just want to sing high praises of mp3fs[1], assuming some kind of Linux or macOS machine. It solves this problem in a way that I think more people should know about!

[1] https://khenriks.github.io/mp3fs/