How To Hack The Destination Configuration Of A Sony NW-A26 From Japan To Canada On Debian 12...

# How To Hack The Destination Configuration Of A Sony NW-A26 From Japan To Canada On Debian 12 AMD64

This is not officially supported, but can be accomplished with third-party tools such as SonyNWDestTool which is part of RockBox. I cannot vouch for the safety of this tool, so I strongly recommend reading the source code of the program before attempting use it. By changing the destination configuration to Canada, the device UI can be switched to English.

In this tutorial the precompiled binary is used, rather than compiling from source.

## Steps

- Enter in terminal:
"
sudo apt-get install wget
"
- Enter in terminal:
"
cd ~/Downloads && wget https://www.rockbox.org/realwiki/pub/Main/SonyNWDestTool/scsitool_64-nwz-v27
"
- Enter in terminal:
"
chmod u+x scsitool_64-nwz-v27
"
- Connect the Sony NW-A26 audio player to the computer using the USB cable.
- Enter in terminal:
"
lsblk -o MODEL,NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINT,PATH
"
- Using the lsblk output, determine the device path of the audio player (e.g., "/dev/sdb").
- In terminal enter:
"
sudo ./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 /dev/sdb get_dev_info
"
- Based on this output, confirm it's the correct device.
- In terminal enter:
"
sudo ./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 /dev/sdb dest_tool get
"
- Based on this output, confirm the "Destination" is currently "J (0)". In this case, the J means Japan.
- In terminal enter:
"
sudo ./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 /dev/sdb dest_tool set CA off
"
(Note: The "off" turns sound pressure regulation (SPS) off. Alternatively, you can specify "on" to turn it on. This setting may not work on all models.)
- The program should return a success message.
- In terminal enter:
"
sudo ./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 /dev/sdb dest_tool get
"
- Based on this output, confirm the settings have changed to "CA (301)".
- In terminal enter:
"
rm scsitool_64-nwz-v27
"
This will delete the program.
- Disconnect the audio player from the computer, and turn it on.
- On the audio player, navigate to the briefcase icon, scroll down the bottom of the list which should have "(Language)" listed, and select "English".

## Notes

- You can reset device settings by going to "Settings", "Common Settings", "Reset/Format", and "Reset All Settings". This does not undo the configuration changes made by the hack, but may be required on some devices for them to take effect.
- For more information about SonyNWDestTool visit {the tool's wiki page} (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SonyNWDestTool#GettingTool).

## Meta

AUTHOR: James Daniel Marrs Ritchey
DATE CREATED: January 14, 2026
LICENSING: This document is hereby licensed under the Ritchey Permissive License v19.