SYNTHETIC STEREO CONFERENCING OVER LAN/WAN

A method of and system for facilitating synthetic stereo audio conferencing of a plurality of users over a local or wide area network (LAN/WAN). The disclosure describes a system architecture using a LAN/WAN to support synthetic audio conferencing thus allowing, at a receiving user location, for the spatially distinct virtual “placement” of the other parties involved in a conference call. This enables the user to differentiate between the various other parties and to discern which one or more of the parties are talking at any given time. In a first embodiment of the invention, both stereo synthesis and conferencing are client-based functions. In a second embodiment of the invention, both stereo synthesis and conferencing are server-based functions. In a third embodiment of the invention, stereo synthesis is a server-based function and conferencing is a hybrid client/server function using multicast.