Is there a way to prevent voice dictation from turning off the system audio? How can I configure OS X to allow audio playback while I use voice-to-text?

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As empowered as my MacBook makes me [feel], an important part of my personality is indefinitely numb from familiarity with a feeling the still hopeful ones of us will also integrate into their being eventually: devastation that "no, you can't." is literally the  correct answer to their Apple-related how-to question.

... so, with carefully managed expectations, I await ...
Run these two commands in terminal.

defaults write com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore AllowAudioDucking -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.speech.recognition.AppleSpeechRecognition.prefs DictationIMAllowAudioDucking -bool NO


Then restart Dictation.