Pap... no "tapes" with the AW1600, just a hard drive.
FS, I haven't experienced anything like this with my AW. Does the breakup show up in the audio file or only in the playback section? You should be able to determine this by exporting a song, either on CD, or pulling it directly out via USB and playing it on another system. From what little you said, I'm guessing it distorts on all playback, include previously good song files.
The AW1600 only has a few circuit boards, If a board or part is going bad, then it's probably going to require a technician to track it down, or to get a replacement board (not even sure if any are still available).
It might be cheaper to try to track down a used unit and swap hard drives to maintain your old files.