I can confirm RonaldBlaze's observation. I have a similar setup with USB DAC and disabled on-board audio.
1. Flash latest image, change audio to USB DAC and activate spotifyd - everything ok.
2. Disable onboard audio, reboot. No covers, RuneAudio generally unresponsive.
3. Enable onboard audio, reboot. Everything ok again.
This problem did not occur with the image that I downloaded on Sunday, 30th August. I occurred the first time during the update to this image.