How do I turn off speech search in Jelly Bean? I have a rooted Samsung Galaxy S 2, and last night I updated it to Jelly Bean in hopes that it might solve a few small bugs.

Most everything seems to be working as hoped. However, one new inconvenience has popped up. Before the upgrade, I controlled my MP3 player, Poweramp, by pressing the button attached to the wire of my headphones. One short press to stop and start songs, one long press to advance forward.

After upgrading, whenever I press the button, the phone goes into voice search mode. That is, it turns on the microphone and is waiting for me to say something to search for using the Google search app.

I have tried to look in system settings, and also in the settings for the Google search widget that's on the top of every screen. However, I can't find any way of turning this off.

I want to give priority to Poweramp so that I can control music playback. How do I get voice search to stop getting in the way?
I do not know of a way to disable Google Now intercepting media button presess unless you have a rooted phone, as you did not specify that you did, I am going to assume you don't.

The easiest way to do this would be to disable the Google Voice search app.

Go to your Apps settings menu (System Settings --> Apps).

Slide to the left until you get to the 'All' list, scroll down until you find the app named 'Google Voice Search', click it and click the disable button - now reboot your device.

Edit:

As you have a rooted phone, you could install the Auto starts app from Google play, and use it to disable the 'Media Button Pressed' entry under Google Voice Search.

This is a paid app.

Google Voice Search will not act as if it is not installed onto your device.