My son chewed the cord on my $65 Turtle Beach X11 headset, ruining it. As a result, I went on the hunt for a replacement. Even though the Turtle Beach was a great headset I didn't want to invest in that again, especially if my kid was going to chew on it. As an alternative I tried the official $20 headset, a 2.5mm cell phone headset, and a 2.5mm headset for a cordless landline phone. This has encouraged me to try a few other headsets and here are my experiences so far.
First, I purchased a 2.5mm cell phone headset (the Body Glove Sport). It worked, sort of, but I wasn't happy with it. I didn't pay a lot of attention to exactly what was wrong, I just noticed it wasn't working well. I figured there was something special about official headsets, so I took it back to try again.
Next I found the official XBox 360 headset for just a few dollars more. Slam dunk, I thought, so I picked it up. When I got home I found that the official headset didn't pick up my voice unless I spoke really loud, basically a yell. I went into my settings, hoping to find a volume control, only to find that my voice volume was already all the way up. At the time, I didn't think to try the volume “lower”. Maybe it would reduce the pickup sensativity if the volume was lower? I doubt it, but it's something I should have tried but didn't. So, the official headset had to go back, but what other options did I have?
My next purchase was a Phillips headset (SHU3000) designed for landline cordless phones. It had a 2.5mm plug and looked like a little better quality than the official XBox headset. I had a gift card at the box store from my previous purchase, so I thought I'd give it a try. This headset performs at least as well as the official one and probably a little bit better. I still have to talk a little louder to have the speaker icon appear next to my name but other players seemed to hear me okay. I'll continue trying this one for a few more days. I may even try lowering the volume to see if it improves or gets worse. But, at the very least this headset is a couple bucks cheaper and at least as good as the official headset.