I'm interested in any recommendations people might have for a good USB headset to use for voice recognition. I have a number of papers I need to write and I thought that at least for the rough draft/brainstorming sessions, it'd be nice to build up some experience with using MacSpeech Dictate. Unfortunately the headset I have is great for listening to movies/music, but the microphone sucks for even attempting set-up of the dictation. So I need a good headset with a nice, clear noise-canceling microphone.

I'm looking for something that's got good price/value ratio. It should be USB.

The top model I'm considering is a Sennheiser PC 156 USB (which will set me back about 76 euros on Amazon.de)

Or I might get the Philips SHM 7410 (about half the price on Amazon at about 38 euros.)

Or (for just a bit less), there's the Logitech ClearChat Pro USB

Anyone have any experience with this? Other pluses would be decent sound (for music/video, etc) and comfort (assuming I'd be wearing it much). Thanks, in advance, for any tips or feedback anyone might have.

Having done some further research, I'm strongly leaning toward just getting the Sennheiser model. It's not cheap... but then again, it's not cheaply made, either. I've read a lot more negative reviews of quality on Plantronics, Philips and Logitech models that I would have otherwise considered. Sets either came faulty and had to be returned immediately or deteriorated in time and were replaced with a Sennheiser set similar to the model I'm considering.

Still open to feedback, but assuming I don't get any, maybe my follow-up on this will be helpful to others looking to make the same buying decision. Whatever I buy, I'll be sure to add a small review here. :-)

I have a Sennheiser PC166 USB myself and it's very good. The sound is very clear and nice, so is the mic.
Even after some hours of using it still doesn't irritate your ears.
So I recommend this one if you look for a wired headset (its around $100)

The only thing I wish is a such a good headset but then wireless (bluetooth) but there seems NO good one exist yet. Only some in-ear mono headsets or some stereo like the Plantronics Pulsar 590A but that one sux big time.
So if anyone have a suggestion for a VERY GOOD wireless stereo headset (no in-ears) that also works with skype and Mac then I would like to know.

Good luck.
BiTRiP

Here in Germany that one costs 20 euros more than the PC 156 on Amazon.de (which seems to have pretty good prices on these, especially since there's free shipping -- having compared with price searches here). From the Sennheiser site and user ratings, it seems the PC 156 is virtually the same headset, the 166 just has bigger, cushier ear-pads, right?

Yeah, wireless would be nice if it were easy to do, but then you have to deal with the fact that you have something with another radio transmitter right next to your head for prolonged periods of time... and something that requires batteries that need to be bought and/or charged regularly. And then there's the fact that, as you point out, they all pretty much suck so far... so I'll go without wireless, especially since it's not for Skype that I want this. Perhaps, in the future, there will be a little box we can buy to plug our high-end headset into (worn at the waist or something) that will let us go "unfettered" if we want to roam away from the 'puter for a while. That would be ideal.... especially if it could just be plugged into a USB port to charge and operate as "wired" when sitting by the system.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback. Unless you know something more about the PC 166 that would make it really worth the extra 20 euros (I'm guessing it's not much different, really... just a model for people who want to buy the "top end" and pay the top price), I'll likely go with my PC 156 pick. It really looks like it's basically the same headset from the specs, etc.

I personally have this one : http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalc...ls.aspx?pid=006 (Lifechat LX 3000) and it's confortable, doesn't crush my ears, and the quality is top notch : this is the first time ever I hear a cheap headset than can reproduce nice basses. The microphone is perfect too, quality is crystal clear, really i'm not disappointed at all.

Didn't buy it cause I thought it was cool : I did researches on the net before and pretty much everyone agreed it was one of the best headset for the price. For sure it's no 100 euros headset (well i'm telling this, I never tried any... but I guess so), but the sound quality is definitly better than any 20-40 euros headset there.

Too bad I didn't see your recommendation of the Microsoft headset till after ordering this Sennheiser model. I'm writing this post with the headset right now and while it's still a new and strange experience, I think I'll grow to like it. Well, maybe I could've saved an extra €50, but I guess I didn't see the Microsoft model when I did my initial search on Amazon because I was only looking at headsets which were four-star rated or higher. Even if this microphone is only a tiny bit better (and I don't know that it is), I'm sure that that small difference would actually be a pretty big difference in terms of my satisfaction with the quality of the voice recognition.

It also provides endless amusement --- the following is what appeared on my screen after I clicked on submit in this form and lost what I'd written. Apparently I didn't enunciate the explosion of profanity quite clearly enough:

(I'll leave it to people's imagination to guess what it is that I actually said. )