# Jensen VM9726BT DD navigation Head Unit review



## nanohead (Oct 21, 2013)

Well, I've kind of had it with most head units these days. The primary manufacturers have become like the Ski manufacturers, where they give us new models every year, with nothing notable, other than a shiny new paint job.

The Jensen marks my 6th head unit in the past 14 months, and each one has had its good points and bad points. I'd like to start by pointing out, that IMHO, other than people getting emotional, most head units are almost the same, stratified by their marketers with feature packages, most of which don't have any affect on car audio enthusiasts that like music quality. The handful of features that differentiate in a product line (4V preout, equalizers, some processing, etc) all manufacturers have these days.

I really don't care how many features are packed into a product, as long as the ones I like to use actually WORK. My main experience with most of the past few years of DD head units have been pretty bumpy, with many features simply sucking, and not working either correctly, or at all.

And in the case of Double Din units, with touchscreens becoming standard, the units have transitioned to complete computers, with CPUs, memory, graphics processors, I/O modules, etc, where the touchscreen is the display. The entire interaction with the unit for the most part, is a SOFTWARE experience, the hardware is nearly generic other than some subtle styling.

And the car audio companies have yet to learn how to make software that is decent, with some of it so buggy as to boggle my mind. FWIW, I've been an engineer in the tech business for nearly 30 years, and I would have been fired for putting out half the stuff these companies have released recently.

After my whiny intro, onto the unit itself.

The Jensen VM9726BT is Jensen's top of the line Navi all in 1 Double DIN unit. Now most of us that are a little older remember Jensen as THE brand that we all wanted years ago. Now, they are owned by Audiovox (or VOXX), along with Klipsch, Jamo, Energy, RCA, Acoustic Research, Advent and many others. They also do a ton of OEM work for the car manufacturers, and were one of the main sources of external satellite radio tuners for years.

For most of us car audio crazies, we wouldn't think to look at Jensen, as we're all obsessed with obscure brands, or are programmed to think about Alpine, Pioneer, Kenwood, Rockford, etc. After the disastrous run with the Clarion NX603, I decided to just try something totally different. 

The things I wanted were Navi (tried mirrorlink, and it sucks), SiriusXM integration, USB (and SD if possible), 5 or 6 preamp outs (2 or 4v, as I use a DSP), good Bluetooth (which doesn't exist on the earth), steering wheel control, and an interface I can read with my middle aged eyes.

Sources: It has them all, 2 USB, SD card, SiriusXM, Am/FM, Pandora (I don't use this), CD.DVD, BT Audio. They all work, and switching back and forth is actually easy, with a hot spot on the top left of the screen. One of the easier ones I've used to switch sources lately.

MP3 music tagging holds up pretty well, and the unit shows the folders as they're labled, and in the correct order (why can't Pioneer figure this one out still). I had a little trouble with a venerable USB drive thats been loaded for a year, ended up reformatting it and it worked fine then. The manual says maximum of 8GB, but not sure if thats true as I have a 16GB in there now. 

However, that may be due to the fact than when I put in a card with more than 8GB of music, it gets confused reading the metadata and I can't see my music folders sometimes. This is either a bug, or they didn't provision enough RAM to load the file system metadata beyond a specific amount.

Screen and Display: Its a traditional 6.1 inch, with hard buttons on the side for volume, navi, source. The display characters are BIG and SIMPLE which is awesome. There's no tooty fruity graphics or other silly stuff on source screens. The main screen for source selection DOES have these kind of useless animated icons, but I never have that screen there anyway. You can't seem to arrange the icons, but there aren't that many so I can live with it. 

The whole display affair is pretty no frills, which I personally love, as its not distracting. It also has a light sensor for auto dimming, which is better IMO than the headlight wire trigger mechanism.

The hot spots are another story. The 2 problems I'm having now, which I'm going to call Jensen (great tech support so far) about, is that item selection is hard to get precise (selecting an MP3 file often selects the one above or below it on the list), and that when you use an elevator bar to scroll lists of channels or songs, it pulsates and goes up and down before it decides where it wants to be. I didn't do a screen calibration yet, and that may fix it.

SiriusXM integration is really nice, simple, clean. There are 3 preset collections, and I can read the screen. AM is good, FM works, but I don't use it (NY area radio, enough said). CD works fine, haven't tried DVD video yet, but it is MULTI zone, which is cool.

Bluetooth: Here, the Jensen people actually claim to OEM their BT from Parrott, who are the self appointed Bluetooth geniuses. Streaming audio works really well, and sounds good (Moto X source mostly), and the steering wheel controls do indeed work!!! and control my phones Poweramp music player (super cool)

Bluetooth phone on the other hand is goofy. The unit has a built in Mic, and also accepts an external Mic. I have both. I always seem to be on a conference call, so I need decent phone BT. I can hear great, but people tell me I have an echo, which is idiotic in 2014. There may be an attenuation setting hidden somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. The external mic seems to get fewer complaints. Also, sometimes people say I sound great too, so as with all BT, it never seems to work the same way twice in a row.

Phone integration is pretty nice, you can find people pretty easily in the phonebook, and the dial pad is nice and big. Also, the calling screen is SIMPLE, big characters, just the info you need. Nice.

Audio: Just to level set, I don't believe there's any such thing as an SQ head unit any more. They're all pretty much the same now, some have more processing, better equalizers, higher preout voltage, etc, but in general, the SOURCE output itself is the same on every unit at the root of it. All I personally care about is source management, as I use external DSPs now, as well as have always used external amps for many years.

There's very little processing here, a simple equalizer, a few pre sets, a sub on/off, and traditional fader/balance. Nothing else really, which is perfect for me at least. I don't use any of it anyway. Through my system it sounds amazing, but I can't say thats the head unit, as the DSP, Speakers and Amps do all the heavy lifting. Everything on the head unit is flat or off.

Navigation: Here also, Jensen claims to OEM from iGo. It looks identical to the software that was in the Clarion, so I assume they supply them as well. It works better on the Jensen though, as it seems to give me more early warnings, and it talks less (the Clarion wouldn't shut up...ever)

Other Stuff: Backup camera display is amazing. Alot of this is the camera I have (which has been flaky lately), but its beautiful and detailed. It does something interesting when reverse in engaged, which is MUTING the volume! At first I thought I broke something, but I've learned to actually respect it as a clever idea. I don't use Pandora, so can't comment. Also, it has iPod integration, however, I don't have an iPod so can't comment there either. It doesn't claim to have any other smartphone integration, which is fine, as it never works correctly anyway.

Nits: Sometimes, it continues playing a source USB/SD even when I switch to another source, which means if I switch back to that USB for example, its played many more songs. It doesn't halt that source when you switch away from it. That is annoying, and another bug. It also, somewhat inconsistently, displays the Navi warning/accept screen on startup, but not always.

Conclusion: I actually like this unit so far quite a bit. It has some bugs, but its far more functional than most of the others I've used in the past 14 months. Its simple, clear, and well thought out. Navi works fine, and it has all the sources you could ever want. I'm gonna stick with this one unless it brain farts badly. When you call Jensen/Voxx tech support, a human answers, and they actually talk to you. I'm going to try and make contact with their SW engineers to demonstrate the wierd behavior.


For now, this one is a keeper.


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## Wibby (Mar 2, 2014)

Great review. Thank you. I have been looking for a higher end unit with a knob volume control and the Jensen maybe what I am looking for. How is the Android comparability? With Nav in the unit, having the unit mirror the phone is less of an issue. 

Having trouble finding a unit for sale online. Besides EBay, do you know of another retailer?


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## nanohead (Oct 21, 2013)

I go the last one Crutchfield had, although it seems more are coming. Sonic has them I believe, and there are some ebay sellers too.

There's no android compatibility as far as I know, but that could me anything. I'm android too, and other than bluetooth, which works as I described, there's nothing special. I haven't tried connecting my phone to the head unit via usb yet.


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## Wibby (Mar 2, 2014)

Ended up buying a refurb off EBay for $300. Paid with Amex, so will have an extended warrantee. Hope its a quality unit. 

Do you know if the unit has a parking break override? Any usability hindered, while driving?

*edit* looks like the unit i ordered off Ebay was the 9725, not 9726. Cancelled the order. Will look locally and keep searching online for a deal.


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## nanohead (Oct 21, 2013)

Hard to tell what the difference was between the 25 an 26, I almost bought the 25 also.

I have one of those $20 park brake overrides that works fine. I no longer mess around with the the park brake, I just bypass. Some of the head unit manufacturers make is so restrictive, it becomes totally unusable, so I just bypass now


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