Where is the setting to turn this feature off?
I don't need another copy of my audio files just because I'm using a new version.

If you are importing Audio to a project, in the Import Popup Window,  there is a tick box Copy Audio to Project Folder if you deselect that your Audio files will not be copied to your project folder.

Right - except for I'm not doing that. I'm just saving an existing file with existing audio from a previous version - and it's saving the audio data over to a new folder.

That should not happen. 
I have always used per project audio folders and that's were the audio is for over 150 projects. It cannot be moved unless I perform a SAVE AS and check the copy audio with project box. 
 
I can open those projects in any version of Sonar and that should not change anything. 
 
Only time thing might get moved is if you were using a pre Splat version that used the global audio folder ( bad idea) and now the CbB is following the way it is done now and uses Per Project folders by default. 

I believe the thing with Phil is he has a single location audio Pool that he uses and does not want to duplicate those files on his machine Johnny.  Though I think it does make for some interesting issues when backing up projects. 

Yes - Wookiee has got it.
For some reason - with the new Bandlab version, akewalk is creating audio folders under all of the CWP files.
Where is the "Per Project Audio Folders settings" can't seem to find it.

That is the way it has been for a while now even with Splat. 
They made the Per Project option the default. I don't think there is a way to shut it off. 
It was probably because every one wanted the per project as default because the old global audio folder was a bad idea and made it hard to back up songs. There used to be a lot of threads from people who had a huge mess and had lost track of their audio files. 
 
I used to have to manually make a project folder before saving a  song. Now it's done for me so I certainly like the feature the way it works. Saves time. 
Example you open a midi file and then SAVE AS to a Normal ( CWP ) file it will create a folder and put the CWP and an audio folder in there. Done. Ready to work on. 

Good to know . . .
Not what I wanted to hear, but good to know.

The "New Project File" and "Save As" dialogs still provide a way to set the audio path. There is nothing to prevent multiple (or all) projects from using the same path. When specifying an alternate location for audio, keep in mind the project stores an absolute path to the audio folder instead of a relative path.