Music syncing very slow (SMB vs AFP mounted NAS drive)

This is kinda complex and relates to several different things, so I've put it here as it is related to syncing my Music library, so please bear with me while I explain the issue.

My music library is hosted on a NAS drive, mounted on my MacBook via SMB. It has been this way for 10+ years, and rarely caused me any problems (other than the expected slower seek/skip times you'd expect from it not being on an internal drive). But problem have started since I replaced my 2014 MBP with a 2024 M3 MBA two months ago.

I mount my NAS via SMB in Finder, as previously stated. Since getting the MBA I've had constant and repeated server interruptions when my NAS connection basically drops off and disconnects. So much so I had to install Automounter to keep up it. For the most part, Automounter works, but if I'm syncing my iPhone with the Music app, or transferring files to/from the NAS, it fails when the connection breaks. I also noticed my Music syncs were very, VERY slow - consistently half an hour to complete a sync (be it one song or twenty).

Step 1 and 2 are usually relatively quick, taking up to but usually less than 2 mins, but step 3 sits for 28/29/30 mins each and every time

After that, there's "waiting for changes to be applied" - that could zip along in less than 30 seconds, or take a minute. Step 4, syncing actual music depends on how many songs: I also down convert from 320k to 192k to conserve space, so this can take a little extra time. But it's always done in a few mins. In the case below, it took 2:39 to sync those 32 songs.

Now here comes the weird bit - when the songs have finished syncing, it then syncs artwork for 1341 items. Except it doesn't - no artwork changes are ever made (on the iPhone I mean). And it's *always* 1341 items, even if it's different ones, it's always the same number (for reference, my library is about 16,500 songs). This takes ~2 mins

So, in an effort to combat this, I removed the SMB mounted share and remounted via AFP. I noticed much less (almost none) server interruptions and disconnects, and surprisingly my Music syncs sped up dramatically - circa 10 mins per sync now. Same process - steps 1 and 2 take ~30 seconds, it can be 5/6 maybe 7 mins on step 3, then a minute or two for syncing the actual songs (depending how many) and then the 1341 artworks. But now there's a new weirdness - it goes on to sync lyrics. I have NO songs with lyrics in. I'm not an Apple Music subscriber, all my music is offline in the library and not one song has lyrics in it. Yet it insists on syncing lyrics to 248 songs every time. Yes, just like artwork, it's always 248 songs.

After I had to reboot yesterday, I noticed whenever I try to sync, Finder automatically mounts my NAS share via SMB, even though it's already mounted by AFP. Didn't seem to make a difference, it ran as it has been since Ive been mounting via AFP. So I tried deleting the AFP share and keeping only the SMB share - immediately back to the extremely long half hour syncs. The only difference this time is is now only syncs 8 lyrics not 248 (but still does 1341 artworks).

So I don't get it. I never had these problem on my 2014 MBP (on Mojave with iTunes or Big Sur with Music), syncs were always done in under 5 mins if I'm just syncing a dozen or so songs, and I rarely if ever got server interruptions and disconnects. I've always used SMB, so I don't know why the MBP (or more likely Sequoia) doesn't like it.