A method for processing audio data, the method comprising: receiving audio data involving a plurality of conference participants, the audio data including at least one of: (a) audio data from multiple endpoints (1, 715a-715d) or (b) audio data from a single endpoint corresponding to multiple conference participants and including spatial information for each conference participant of the multiple conference participants; analyzing the audio data to determine conversational dynamics data; and assigning virtual conference participant positions for each of the conference participants in a virtual acoustic space; CHARACTERIZED IN THAT: the audio data corresponds to a recording of a conference, and in the case of (a) the audio data for each of the multiple endpoints has been recorded separately; and the conversational dynamics data includes data indicating the frequency or duration of conference participant speech the method further comprises: applying the conversational dynamics data as one or more variables of a spatial optimization cost function of a vector describing the virtual conference participant position for each of the conference participants in the virtual acoustic space; and applying an optimization technique to the spatial optimization cost function to determine a locally optimal solution; wherein the assigning of the virtual conference participant positions in the virtual acoustic space is based, at least in part, on the locally optimal solution. receiving audio data involving a plurality of conference participants, the audio data including at least one of: (a) audio data from multiple endpoints (1, 715a-715d) or (b) audio data from a single endpoint corresponding to multiple conference participants and including spatial information for each conference participant of the multiple conference participants; analyzing the audio data to determine conversational dynamics data; and assigning virtual conference participant positions for each of the conference participants in a virtual acoustic space; CHARACTERIZED IN THAT: the audio data corresponds to a recording of a conference, and in the case of (a) the audio data for each of the multiple endpoints has been recorded separately; and the conversational dynamics data includes data indicating the frequency or duration of conference participant speech the method further comprises: applying the conversational dynamics data as one or more variables of a spatial optimization cost function of a vector describing the virtual conference participant position for each of the conference participants in the virtual acoustic space; and applying an optimization technique to the spatial optimization cost function to determine a locally optimal solution; wherein the assigning of the virtual conference participant positions in the virtual acoustic space is based, at least in part, on the locally optimal solution. the audio data corresponds to a recording of a conference, and in the case of (a) the audio data for each of the multiple endpoints has been recorded separately; and the conversational dynamics data includes data indicating the frequency or duration of conference participant speech the method further comprises: applying the conversational dynamics data as one or more variables of a spatial optimization cost function of a vector describing the virtual conference participant position for each of the conference participants in the virtual acoustic space; and applying an optimization technique to the spatial optimization cost function to determine a locally optimal solution; wherein the assigning of the virtual conference participant positions in the virtual acoustic space is based, at least in part, on the locally optimal solution. applying the conversational dynamics data as one or more variables of a spatial optimization cost function of a vector describing the virtual conference participant position for each of the conference participants in the virtual acoustic space; and applying an optimization technique to the spatial optimization cost function to determine a locally optimal solution; wherein the assigning of the virtual conference participant positions in the virtual acoustic space is based, at least in part, on the locally optimal solution.