Total newbie with Visual C++ and Need help with DirectSound and COM

I have been developing in C# for about 2 years now and Java for another 2 years. So I'm not a newbie to developing in general. But I'm pretty basic on the Visual C++ and I'm trying to learn how to use DirectSound and DirectShow. I would honestly prefer to use C# since I'm familiar with it, but from what I've seen it seems that I need C++ pointers to work with COM. I have read the MSDN pages on the two and have a idea on how it works but I learn easier by seeing completed code with descriptions. So my question is can someone tell me of a good book or tutorial that I can look into. Any and all advice on these subjects is well appreciated.

Also, I saw that DirectSound has been deprecated by XAudio2. But I'm guessing from what I've read that is for game development. This is for a desktop app and am needing to capture audio from a usb microphone. So I'm not sure if XAudio2 is appropriate for my needs. Thanks in advance for all your help.

4 years development is not actually newbie.

However, when it comes to COM, you can use it from C#, or .NET in general, using interop. Here are a couple of tutorials in MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...12(VS.71).aspx. You can find many more resources on the web.