Hmm... I just plugged one in on my bench with an old Signal Sounds board, it worked exactly as it should. When I checked, with no horn or bell being commanded, I see no DC voltage out of the Sound Converter outputs.
Note that the power outputs from the sound converter have to be isolated from ground, if you have one of them grounded, you'll get continuous DC and what you describe.
For your reference, this is the output circuit of the Sound Converter.