 With its factory tuning and data center DNA, an Intel 730 series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts. Welcome to my review of the Audio Technica A-T-H-A-G1s. So let's start with a physical overview. Man, they absolutely nailed the looks of these things in my opinion. That black with gold accents that look sharp and hint at the high performance nature of the product without turning into the over the top gamer bling. Very, very nice. The earcups themselves have a soft fabric on the inside to cushion your ear loads against the angled drivers inside the earcups and feature a padded pleather outer cushion that is very soft against the skin while not necessarily being the most realistic feeling faux leather that I've ever encountered. The 3D wing headband design boasts convenient, no adjustments necessary compatibility with any head and like anything designed to be one size fits all, doesn't fit perfectly on everyone. Personally, I found it made me acutely aware of the two spots on my head where the weight of the headphones were hanging, but at least due to the lightweight design of the A-G1s, it didn't cause me any discomfort even after a couple hours of continuous use. The other issue for me with these is that they just plain don't stay on for me. The left side of the headset is slightly heavier than the right side due to the cable and the microphone, so I found that that side sags more than the other side and because the materials on the top pads in the earcups while soft and cushiony and nice are also a little bit slippery they don't really do anything to help them stay on. There is an easy fix however, a band-aid solution if you will. Just put an elastic band between the wings like so, you'll have to experiment with the right size elastic and I found that once I found the perfect elastic, it addressed all the issues that I had with them and they were both comfortable and stayed on just fine. One way Audio-Technica could fix this for me would be to include some tasteful black or gold elastics that come with the headphones and I can try whichever one fits perfectly for me so I don't need to use some janky solution but on a future product I'd just much rather have a full headband for comfort and convenience. I mean lots of gamers that I know hang their headsets around their necks or pull one ear off to hear the things around them and I found that around the neck puts the plastic support bars directly against your neck and taking off one earcup makes them basically fall right off for me, another oops. The good news is that the elastic that I needed to make them stay on my head in the first place also helps with these issues. While I'm picking on the ergonomics of the product though, I wish that the mic had a wider range of motion, it's 100 degrees as it is so that it's not always kind of hanging in my peripheral vision when I'm not using it. I mean this last complaint in particular looks like it could be very easily addressed simply by removing a little plastic stopper here so that it folds up a little bit higher. It comes with a one meter cable pre-attached that terminates in a four pole connector for compatibility with mobile devices or the included USB sound card and it is not detachable but it is very robust feeling so I doubt it will ever need to be replaced. And I'd rather have a solid pre-attached cable than a proprietary or fragile removable one. If I had any complaints about the cable it would be that perhaps it's a little bit too stiff and another 8 to 12 inches of length would help me get it not only to the front audio connector but also kind of you know routed a little bit further down so it's not anywhere near my arms especially if my tower is next to me. Audio Technica does include a two meter extension that splits into two three poles to work with your analog sound card and to help you reach around to the back of your computer but it doesn't address folks who might want to use the surprisingly decent USB sound card that can easily drive these headphones past comfortable audio levels without distortion but have it in the back of their system where they can't see it because these don't go in here. So a four pole extension with a small pigtail adapter would have been a more versatile solution allowing front analog rear analog front USB and rear USB operation all without a trip to the store for an extra adapter. Back to the mic for a moment it is a very premium feeling the flexible boom is outstanding and it can be easily positioned exactly where you need it. This is a big complaint I have about a lot of microphones and not this one. It also features a nearby mute button that's nice and easy to reach but is unfortunately not automatically triggered when you move the microphone up out of the way like some other headsets in this price range. Now let's move on to listening tests. All listening tests were done on a shit stack in a Titanfall game stream or with my usual mix of top 40 music and I'll say this the AG ones have a much more balanced frequency response than you'll typically find on a gaming headset. Nice accurate and clear highs, rich mids and punchy strong but not overpowering lows. I haven't tried the open back ATH-ADG ones but man I don't think I care. Even when I got the closed version it's amazing how natural they sound. They do such a great job of not making me feel like I'm in a tiny little cave with a plastic speaker mounting apparatus clamped to my head. I mean sure that's what's actually going on here but that doesn't mean I want to confront that reality. I'm in my zone right? And even more impressively because of their DADS or double air damping system they don't leak sound. That translates into better positional audio because your left ear can't accidentally hear right channel sound and more immersive gaming since you'll never be bothered by annoying spouses, children, pets and I mean hell the apocalypse could probably happen with these on and I wouldn't notice that either. The other real world benefit of their isolation is that you also won't bother those other folks with whatever you're listening to whether it's games or music. Now because of their price they end up in side by side listening tests against some tough competition though. By comparison the AKG K702s are much harder to drive having much higher impedance and similar bass response but lack some oomph in the mid range and have more sparkle at the high end. I know that some people prefer but past a certain point I find fatiguing to listen to. I do prefer AKG's suspension headband implementation but I really do not prefer the hard foam that they use on the ear cups compared to this nice soft stuff. I also dug my PC350s which are still quite similar to the current model high end closed back from Sennheiser out of a bin where I found them at Luke's place. He's so fired. Mids were strong on these similar to the ATs but the highs were comparably veiled something that may be an issue when pinpointing in game sounds and their bass while strong and punchy only really delivers if I press them against my head to seal them because I think Sennheiser was designing these for elves. These are also really hard to drive for a gaming headphone. My last competitor was the DT770s from Beyerdynamic and it's obvious why these have such a good reputation. They've got the 80 ohm impedance version and apart from being much more difficult to drive and sounding a little bit bassier they were I'd say equally pleasing to listen to. Noise isolation is not as strong though and this is likely partly due to the cloth ear cups and obviously they have no included mic or included USB sound card but then again they are less expensive overall. Now speaking of the included mic, let's get into microphone quality. This headset will be the first entry into our new standardized mic testing system. I'm going to record three test phrases on an Asus Thunder FX external sound card. One like I'm having a conversation with someone on Skype, one like I'm excited in the middle of a game and one like I'm speaking quietly so as not to wake the baby. I'm going to link to these sound clips in the video description. For your convenience though, here is a clip from this headset that should basically make you want to go buy it right now. Holy actual balls. The mic on the AG-1 is unreal. If you didn't tell me this mic was integrated on a gaming headset I would believe it was a much more expensive stand-alone solution. Bravo Audio-Technica. I guess that's what some audio engineering expertise brings to the gaming headset scene. So the conclusion for this product is this. Great first attempt. Audio-Technica took a new market, one that they admittedly haven't addressed before, and designed a product for it that is really solid. It sounds great in games, I mean good headphones sound good in games, and will satisfy all but the most discerning audiophiles when it comes to music enjoyment as well. I mean when I say discerning I don't mean in terms of quality. They sound great. It's just that some people prefer a slightly different sound signature for music enjoyment versus gaming, that's all. They've got a fantastic microphone on here, and apart from a few ergonomic complaints which I covered pretty thoroughly in the video, this is pretty much as good as I could expect a gaming headset to be. The drawback, I mean well it's linked in the video description if you want to buy one, but prepare yourself because the price tag reflects the premium quality of the product, is price. They are very expensive, but sometimes you get what you pay for. Speaking of getting what you pay for, audible.com. I swear with over 150,000 audiobooks available to download at a moment's notice and listen to on your phone or in your car or on your headphones, see how these things went together so nicely. Oh sorry, I got distracted there. The point is that wherever you happen to be, these guys seem to have everything. One of the hot items on the bestseller list right now is an original story called Doctor Who Dead Air that is not only about the 10th Doctor, but also happens to be voiced by David Tennant. So if like me, you didn't get enough of him in his relatively long but still too short run as the Doctor, you can easily get your fix by signing up for a free trial of Audible's monthly audiobook service. The first one is free, and if you decide you like it, you'll get an audiobook of your choice every month to enjoy. Just head over to audible.com slash Linus to learn more. Guys like and share this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, and leave a comment on the Linus Tech Tips forum linked in the video description if you want to discuss this product or you have constructive criticism from me and my team. Also linked in the video description is our support link with options to buy t-shirts like this one. Give us a monthly contribution to help us keep making these videos for you or give us a kickback whenever you buy random junk on Amazon. Check it out if you enjoy our videos, it helps us out a whole bunch. 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