Various disclosed implementations involve processing and/or playback of a recording of a conference involving a plurality of conference participants. Some implementations involve receiving or determining conversational dynamics data. One or more variables of a cost function may be based, at least in part, on the conversational dynamics data. The cost function may be a spatial optimization cost function of a vector describing a virtual conference participant position for each of the conference participants in a virtual acoustic space. The virtual acoustic space may be determined relative to a listener's head. The virtual conference participant positions may be assigned according to a solution of the cost function.