I, also, am a newb, and I also am having voodoo problems. Like the updated OP said, I was having trouble getting the eb16 kernel to convert, so I installed the eb01 voodoo kernel. Conversion appeared to take place (got the woman's voice and updates on the progress every minute or so), which took approximately 5 minutes.
Rebooted, tried voodoo control app, which gave me the message: "sorry, this phone doesn't run a kernel supporting extended sound controls." Thinking that the EB01 kernel may perform the conversion but not be totally compatible with this new build, I flashed the EB16 voodoo kernel. Loaded the voodoo control app, got the same message.
Rebooted into recovery, selected voodoo, then selected enable to ensure that although voodoo was currently off, that next boot would enable voodoo. Same result. The EB16 kernel doesn't appear to enable voodoo for me (or at least I don't think it does).
How can I tell? Should the control app be working properly?
Thanks in advance,
Seth