Have you actually tried the player and found it does not work with an RME device (which?)?
Or is this some kind of advertisement for this software?

I would consider the claim to "sound better" to be hifi voodoo / esoterics, like the claim that differennt operating systems could inherently sound different. The RME devices will play any signal from audio software totally transparent and bit-perfect, integer or no integer, without trying to "improve" anything.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

We are neither aware of a difference in audio quality between various OSX versions, nor can the driver "compensate" or improve audio quality.
Just for the record, what software did you use to determine this difference, and can the audible difference you claim to hear be measured?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Sorry MC, I just couldn't resist...

19trax, Audirvana and some other HQ/HiFI player companies will write anything just to convince you to buy their product, ( which btw is not cheap 59 EUR  for single copy). But you can use very good free players... Fortunately at least one company, which also sells its HQ media center supporting Integer/direct mode in OSX, writes true about this driver myth on its support and wiki page. So, 19trax please believe in what is the really true  ( i'm not trying to advertise the company as I personally use only free players...), but Jriver company on their forum is honest regarding the matter:

"OSX 10.9 restores the ability of a sound application to deliver data in the physical format of the DAC.  This ability is often referred to as "integer mode".  OSX 10.6 and earlier had this ability, but it was removed in 10.7 and 10.8.  In those versions, audio was always delivered in 32-bit floating point and changed to the physical format of the device by the operating system.Both playback methods are bit-perfect, and bit-perfect methods sound the same.

Integer mode is slightly more efficient since it removes an additional conversion and pushes less memory through the core audio subsystem.Integer playback puts the hardware into an unmixable state.  In this state, other system processing like volume will be disabled. You will likely want to switch to Internal Volume if you use integer mode.
(...)
Bit-perfect players, playing the same content, running in bit-perfect mode sound the same.
This is the definition of bit-perfect. Computers are deterministic.
The only relevant things happening for audio playback are:
1) Delivering the right bits
2) Delivering the bits fast enough
3) Keeping system usage low enough to avoid trouble [this is debatable]

- Lots of players do number 1, and it's easy to measure.
- Number 2 doesn't affect sound quality unless there's a shortfall,  (....*I cut soft advertisement*)
- Number 3 is slippery and debatable. It doesn't make sense and can't be detected or measured when using good audio hardware. And if there is a problem, it's obvious (ticks, hiccups, hum, etc.) and not something subtle with regards to clarity, soundstage, etc. Regardless, (.... *I cut soft advertisement*)

If someone is trying to sell you a product that has a “better bit-perfect”, they're tricking you (and maybe themselves)."

I completely agree with above statement, especially the last one It looks like Audirvana is trying to trick people...

Sources I used from Jriver:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84657.0
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Bit-perfect_Audio

I am interested just in the correct audio result like it was on 10.6.8 period.
I am not the only one that can hear this.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9245810-post13.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9260115-post61.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9262507-post93.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9431660-post139.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9431862-post142.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9519748-post167.html

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/9520660-post169.html

integer mode:
This brings the optimization at the CoreAudio driver level, by removing all the standard Mac OS X audio processing that is implemented for multi-applications processing: mixing buffer, float to native DAC format conversion. And this moves the sound quality further to higher level, especially for the bass response.