Thanks Samm. I've noticed that when I disable everything in Voice setup, as well as turn all the sliders down (there's 3 there I believe), I don't hear the voices anymore (short of the ranged ones) but I _do_ still have my sounds cut out as people talk. It appears that all those controls do is act as volume controls for the voices. Alas, sadly the cure is almost worse than the disease...having sounds cut out completely every time someone talks, and hearing nothing, is almost as annoying as being forced to listen to them yammer on in the first place.
I still feel that I _have_ to be missing something here? I mean this thing can't be that poorly designed, is it? This is more intrusive and annoying than a virus...and I'm paying for it to boot! Ack!