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For TeamSpeak junkies. Logitech 350 Headset is on sale for $18 at buy.com:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s ... c=101&sp=1

I need one of these - is this one any good?

Yes it's ok. I use the same model. Main advantage of USB headset is that it does not conflict with games since it's a separate sound card. And voice quality is usually better comparising with analog headsets.

100hogs wrote:Yes it's ok. I use the same model. Main advantage of USB headset is that it does not conflict with games since it's a separate sound card. And voice quality is usually better comparising with analog headsets.

USB headsets come with a sound card???

I was under the impression that the USB's offer better quality because they have a higher data bandwidth. Also, doesn't the sound/voice quality depend a lot on the type of digital signal filtering used more than the port type?!

USB headsets are virtual soundcards, they don't use allocate sound channels (some game take them exclusively) from primary soundcard. That's what I meant in the original post.
Can't say about bandwidth because it depends on many factors. Besides TeamSpeak uses low bitrate codecs. Highest Speex 25k codec uses only half of theoretically possible 20KHz (i.e. 40 Kbit) bandwidth of soundcard digitizer.
The fact is that built-in and cheap sound cards have poor quality mic inputs or require an adjustment of input level. Cheap analogue headsets are not better either. Besides they all have different characteristics and noise level. USB headset sends already digitized and filtered sound stream directly to software.

100hogs wrote:USB headsets are virtual soundcards, they don't use allocate sound channels from primary soundcard.

Ahh never knew that.