I’ll give the answer before the argument: yes, for a certain kind of player, and no if you want the things gaming brands usually sell you.
Audio-Technica got into gaming from an odd direction. The company spent six decades building phono cartridges, studio monitors and broadcast microphones, and only later turned up with headsets aimed at players. Everything they make is tuned roughly the way a studio headphone is tuned, which means flatter and more detailed than the bass-heavy sound most gaming headsets use to impress you in the first thirty seconds. Whether you like that depends on what you play and why.
The two models most people are actually choosing between arrived in January 2022. Audio-Technica announced the ATH-GL3 and ATH-GDL3 together, one closed-back and one open-back. Underneath they’re nearly the same headset. Both run 45 mm drivers, and both work with PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, laptops and anything else with a 3.5 mm TRRS jack or separate mic and headphone inputs. You get a detachable mic, swappable cables, and a volume dial and mute switch sitting on the left cup. The GDL3 launched at €139. Above them sit the ATH-G1 and the wireless ATH-G1WL, which cost a good deal more.
The open-versus-closed choice is the one that actually matters, and it’s not a question of which is better. The open-back GDL3 gives you a wider soundstage than most gaming headsets manage, and that’s the thing that helps when you’re trying to work out whether someone is behind you or off to your left. Open-backs do positional audio better than any surround processing I’ve used. The cost is that they leak in both directions. If you share a room, or your partner is watching something three feet away, that’s a problem, and the closed GL3 is the one to buy instead. Isolation and soundstage pull against each other.
The reviews are worth reading as a pattern rather than as scores. SoundGuys gave the GDL3 a 6.7, calling it a good option for gamers who also care about sound quality while noting that the simplified design and lack of software features won’t suit everyone. The GL3 got a 6.4 from the same site, which praised the swappable cable, detachable mic and price while criticising the materials and a headband it found slightly uncomfortable. PC Gamer scored the GDL3 an 86. A 9to5Toys reviewer thought the mic sounded pretty good but not as clear as the Corsair HS80 or the Beyerdynamic MMX.
Read those together and the picture is consistent. Everyone likes the sound. The complaints are about everything surrounding it: plastics that feel cheap for the money, a headband that starts making itself known after a few hours, a mic that handles team chat but isn’t something you’d want to stream with. If you’re on voice comms every night, a cheap desk mic will beat the boom arm on any of these, and that’s true of most gaming headsets rather than a flaw specific to this one.
Now the part that’ll decide it for a lot of people: there’s no software. No EQ profiles, no virtual surround, no companion app, no lighting. Nothing to configure at all. Some buyers will see a missing feature list. I see one fewer piece of bad software on my machine, but you should know going in that what you hear out of the box is what you get permanently.
The bass is restrained too, by gaming standards. Explosions won’t hit you in the chest. What you get in exchange is being able to hear a reload underneath the explosion, which in a competitive shooter is the trade I’d take every time. In a single-player game where you want spectacle, you might not.
So, who should buy one. Someone who also listens to music, or edits audio, or just wants one pair of headphones that covers several jobs rather than a dedicated gaming device sitting on a hook. Someone who’d rather hear things accurately than feel them. Someone who doesn’t care what the headset looks like on camera.
Anyone who wants plush padding, wireless convenience and a mic good enough to broadcast with should buy something else. Audio-Technica doesn’t seem especially interested in winning that customer, and I don’t think that’s an accident.
Tech Reviewer & Product Analyst
Định Bia has spent over 10 years testing consumer electronics with a focus on smart technology. He work as a product advisor at Biareview where he helped customers find the right devices for their needs. He personally tests every product featured on this site using a consistent evaluation framework covering quality, durability, and value. All reviews are based on experience, not influenced by the manufacturer.