Specialized MP3 Compression Hardware?

Syn Ack asks: "Does there exist any specialized hardware for the sole purpose of compressing audio into MP3 format? Without going into too much detail, I'm putting together a platform that has to rip and compress as many songs as possible in the shortest amount of time (ie compressing several thousand CDs). I was considering a large ~20 machine *BSD or Linux cluster of high end x86 or Alpha hardware solely for compressing digital audio into MP3 format. Before I go ahead and look at other solutions, I wanted to check the distributed minds of the Slashdot readers to see if they know of any specialized hardware for this purpose. Price isn't really a concern. Something like the dedicated encryption boxes/cards used on Web servers is the type of thing I'm thinking of. Anyone have any ideas?"