🎵 ShairDisplay: AirPlay 2 Hi-Fi Music Display & Precision Diagnostics
A room-scale, production-ready Now Playing display and vintage Hi-Fi diagnostic monitor for Shairport Sync (AirPlay 2) on Raspberry Pi / Linux.
- Interactive Live Demo: https://maniratansingh.github.io/ShairDisplay/
- Original Upstream Audio Engine: Shairport Sync by Mike Brady
- Target Hardware: Dedicated 1080p desktop monitors, wall-mounted displays, and TV screens connected to Raspberry Pi streamers via HDMI.
👑 Built for Shairport Sync by Mike Brady
ShairDisplay is designed specifically as a visual frontend and telemetry companion for Shairport Sync, the foundational open-source AirPlay & AirPlay 2 audio player created and maintained by Mike Brady (@mikebrady).
All credit for the underlying audio magic belongs to Mike Brady —
Shairport Sync handles the complex AirPlay 2 protocol negotiation, Apple
FairPlay/session handling, IEEE 1588 PTP multi-room sync, and
bit-perfect ALSA DAC audio streaming. ShairDisplay runs on top
of Shairport Sync, tapping directly into its D-Bus MPRIS
interface (org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player), NQPTP shared
memory, and Linux ALSA kernel telemetry to bring the audio stream to
life visually on your display.
Highlights & Capabilities
1. Dual-Mode Architecture (Now Playing & Hi-Fi Bench)
- Tab 1: Room-Scale Now Playing Display: Features oversized typography readable from across the room, full-bleed album art with glassmorphism overlays, monotonic progress bars, and dynamic backdrop styles (Fluid Ambient, Vintage Tube Amp Glow, or Stealth Blackout).
- Tab 2: Precision Engineering Bench: Real-time dual analog VU meters with authentic 300ms ballistic physics and peak needles, live 32-band Web Audio FFT spectrum analyzer, bit-perfect DAC audio resolution badge (44.1kHz / 48kHz, 16-bit / 24-bit), and IEEE 1588 PTP master clock sync diagnostics.
2. Standalone Zero-Configuration Architecture
- Single static HTML/CSS/JS client requiring zero compilation or Node.js runtime on the Raspberry Pi.
- Automatic reconnection engine with exponential backoff for headless kiosk boots.
- Fully offline operation with zero external cloud dependencies.