I bought myself a Logitech G330; it comes with an external ADC/DAC. I doubt it's as high quality as the ones that you mentioned - but is miles ahead of on-board solutions (although you might find because the two are designed for each other the quality could be high). It also has built-in weak noise cancellation (if you use the ADC/DAC and plug in the microphone) - which really helps with concentration. If you have music playing at a 'normal' level it completely cancels out environmental noise. The only thing is that the headphones are pretty heavy; it took me a month to get used to the weight on my ears.

everyone is banging on about the poor hardware developers. in terms of the worst software that has ever come with hardware, my no 1 is definitely intellipoint and intellitype. sure, your macro keys are great, but I use the media keys far more often with WINAMP (not media player). this is Microsoft. sorely dissapointed. pure crap. that is all.