I documented the tests on my project log: https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#filter_effect https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#filter_effect In short

I documented the tests on my project log: https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#filter_effect https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#filter_effect In short, I ran C and Lua implementations of the same command, 6 times each, using the built-in "time" command in bash. Averaged the "user" time for each implementation and compared the results. As input, I used a 2m:38.040s long song, 44.1 KHz stereo, converted to a raw file with 32-bit float samples, and I redirected output to /dev/null. For the first benchmark[1], which was faster for LuaJIT, I actually messed up: I compared the "real" time rather than the user CPU time. But as I recall, the "user" times bore the same relationship, and there was very little deviation among the six trials. If you don't trust me, feel free to do a more rigorous test! It's worth mentioning that the effect for which LuaJIT beat C was a simple gain, so what was really being tested was a loop that multiplied a bunch of numbers by a (within the loop) constant. The second test in which Lua was a factor of two slower may be more representative. To build the code, clone the graue/synth and graue/luasynth repos on GitHub. synth includes build instructions, while Luasynth merely requires you to install LuaJIT and run the script. [1]: https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#lua_beats_c https://scott.mn/projects/luasynth.html#lua_beats_c