Edifier GM3SE is a gaming headset with a difference. It has a detachable microphone! This allows you to remove it when you only want to use them for music. And, reattach the mic for when it’s time for some serious gaming.
Let’s take a look at them a lot closer and see how good they are. Will they trounce traditional gaming headsets or will they come up short? Read our review in full to find out.
Edifier GM3SE In Ear Gaming Headset Review
Just how important is a good headset for gaming? Extremely important in our view. You need the greater sound quality for hearing those enemy footsteps. You need great build quality for when you rage quit and throw them down. And, you also need comfort. For those long all night gaming sessions!
The Edifier GM3SE’s fit the bill.
Features & Design
Now, when we talk about headsets we immediately conjure up images of traditional oversized headphones that go over your head. The GM3SE’s are actually in-ear headphones, so they are a lot more portable.
When the headphones arrived I was looking forward to getting my hands on them. The packaging is great. All black with white and red styling features.
I was also pleased to see plastic packaging at a minimum, with only the internal mould made out of plastic. So extra points there! If i’m being overly harsh, there’s no need atall for the internal mould to be plastic.
They have (as we’ve already mentioned) a detachable microphone which is flexible so you can adjust it with ease. The microphone is excellent for gaming, listening to music and taking / making calls. We’ll discuss the mic in more detail later on.
The headphones are wired and have a rubberised cable which gets awfully tangled if you’re not careful. I set them down on my desk for all of 5 minutes and when I came to resume my game they were a tangled mess!
I think I’m so used to braided cable headphones so maybe I’m biased, the braided variety seem to be almost completely tangle free. So in the next version of the GM3SE, a suggestion, please use braided cable!
But, on a positive note the cable is strong and doesn’t feel like it will break or split open anytime soon.
The design is simple and the styling touches are nice. I was sent out the green and black variety, the contrasting colours work well together.
They are quite chunky, but I guess they need to be, in order to fit the dual drivers in each side. They aren’t garish and they don’t scream ‘look at me!’. They are subtle enough to wear them outside for everyday use too.
Full Feature List:
- Dual speaker drivers in each earbud
- Detachable omni directional microphone
- Ergonomic design with soft ear pads
- Wired controller with easy to operate buttons
- Rubberised cable
- Multiple sized ear pads included
- High Quality Travel Pouch to keep everything together included.
- 1.3M cable
- Comes with extension for PC use
The inline control button and volume slider allows you to mute the audio, answer a call, play / pause and skip a track as well as adjusting how loud you have your audio.
The inline controls feel solid and well built, but I did forget it was there at first and struggled to get any audio out of them at all! That’ll teach me a lesson in making sure I read the manual.
Top Tip:
Press the round button twice to forward the song you’re currently playing and press it three times to go back a track. Press once to stop the track.
Edifier GM3SE are manufactured from high grade materials and really do feel like they’ll last a long time, I just hope the ends of the cable don’t give up early, like Apple cables tend to do. Only time will tell.
Edifier GM3SE Sound Quality
The dual speakers in each side produce a really nice sound and really deep bass whilst gaming, listening to music or watching movies.
My only criticism is that the headphones don’t handle un-mastered raw music all that well. And what I mean by that is when listening to ‘lo-fi’ the bass felt overly heavy and the treble sounded a little artificial.
As soon as I switched to some high quality fully mastered songs the issue disappeared so it may be that these type of headphones are probably not ideal for listening to those ‘lo-fi’ style hip hop tracks.
The 10mm tweeter and bass drivers work well together. The strong bass creates a strange vibration effect that drowns out most background noise. The result is that it gives you a (very overused phrase) totally immersive experience.
The high’s are really good which makes the high-hat sounds sound super crisp. The only thing lacking about these are mid-range grunt, it doesn’t have a dedicated ‘squawker’ so relies on mixing the bass and tweeter channels to produce the mid-range frequencies. Not a big deal overall.
Because of those high quality drivers you’ll want to crank up the volume! I did and they don’t distort at higher volumes. But don’t turn them up too loud, we don’t want you injuring your self!
Overall I’d describe the sound quality as good. They’re probably on par with the sound quality of the TWS1’s and only slightly better than the E001’s by Hexgears.
How comfortable are they?
Because the Edifier GM3SE’s come with a variety of different arc shaped ear wing sizes the fit and comfort is all but guaranteed for most people. Unless you have abnormally large or small ears.
As most gamers know, you’ll be at your PC or Console for hours at a time, so gaming audio devices must be comfortable. If they are going to irritate you, then there is very little point in buying it in the first place.
At the time of writing I’ve used the GM3SE’s for around 9 hours so far. By far the longest portion of that was playing Overwatch for over 3 hours. They’re really comfortable for long periods of time. That comfortable in fact, I almost forgot I was wearing an in-ear headset, or at least I did until I stood up and nearly ripped the 3.5mm jack from my PC!
Something that is chunky and weighs a fair bit is easy to cause you some mild discomfort and irritation. But to be honest, they didn’t. I recon it’s due to the fact the rubber ear buds and wingtips fit so well and aren’t overly tight.
Just make sure you try all of the different sizes that are bundled with these gaming headphones. Once you’ve found one that fits you’ll be able to experience the audio as Edifier intended.
Microphone and Voice Chat
These headphones are described as being perfect for gaming, music, videos, calls and live streaming. They don’t mention anything about Skype, but I’d assumed they’d be fine.
I was wrong. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was unable to get the microphone to work. I’m a software engineer by trade so I know my away around a PC! I still haven’t resolved it though. A quick change over to a pair of Apple headphones and it started working immediately. That was the only real issue with the mic that I came across.
Gaming in Call of Duty Battle Royale the mic was fine, my squad could hear me and there was no strange feedback from background noise picked up by the microphone.
The mini-jack that you plug the mic into is well placed. The mic itself could have been about 2 or 3 cm longer in my opinion. It’d make the positioning of it alot easier for those of us with larger faces!
I’ve not used a headset like this before and the detachable mic is a nice feature. Perfect for the security conscious as well. Simply detach the mic when you don’t want to be heard and stash it in the included high quality storage pouch.
How much are they & Who Are They For?
We found the Edifier GM3SE on Amazon for around £34.99 / $43.00. That’s a really great price for ultra-portable gaming headphones.
These traditional wired would make an excellent gift for someone who is into gaming and doesn’t want a bulky headset. Perfect for a fathers day gift for those gaming dads. Here’s a lit of some fantastic fathers day gift ideas.
Edifier GM3SE Specification
For the audiophiles and geeks amongst us, here’s the all important specifications.
| Driver Unit: | á´“ 10mm |
| Bass Unit: | á´“ 10mm |
| Frequency Response: | 20Hz – 20 KHz |
| Sound Pressure Level (SPL): | 93dB ± 3dB |
| Nominal Impedance: | 18 Ohm |
| Cable Length: | 1.3m |
| Weight: | 0.12 Kg |
Edifier GM3SE Review – Unboxing Video
Here’s a great unboxing video that goes in depth and includes a sound test.
Summary and Verdict
I really enjoyed writing the Edifier GM3SE Review.
Overall it’s a tough one to call. I really like them but have Edifier gone slightly backwards with a wired headset? We’re in 2020 now and more and more forward leaps are being made with technology. The latest Bluetooth standard is so good there is almost no-need for wired devices these days.
But, let’s think about it objectively. Let’s think about who the GM3SE’s are for. They’re predominantly focussed at the budget portion of the market. And, if we keep that in mind making these headphones wireless would inflate that price to much. They’d soon break free from the budget spectrum and end up in the premium price band.
For £35 they are well worth the money. You probably will find better headphones out there. But, if you want a good quality, wired with removable mic (that’s the x-factor right there) headset these will do you just fine.
Score: 7.5/10
The Edifier GM3SE in-ear gaming headset is available to buy now from Amazon for £34.99.
About Edifier
Taken from Edifier’s About us Page:
“Edifier specialises in premium audio solutions that showcase technological innovation and design elegance. We deliver outstanding sound experience through a wide range of sound systems for personal entertainment and professional excellence.”
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Disclosure:
If you use any of the Amazon links in this article they are affiliate links. This means that if you go onto buy something from Amazon I may get a small commission. It won’t cost you anything extra but it helps me to pay for the running costs of the blog and allows me to bring you great content! Thank you so much for your support.
CodeWithMike is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to www.amazon.co.uk.
We were given a pair of Edifier GM3SE in exchange for an honest review.
