Abstract. The paper is aimed at a comparative simulation study on three prospective ideas how to approximate a general exponential polynomial by another one having all its exponents in the exp-function as integer multiples of some real number. This work is motivated by spectral properties of neutral time-delay systems (NTDS) and the contemporary state of the knowledge about the spectrum of NTDS with commensurate delays which are characterized by the latter family of exponential polynomials. The three ideas are, namely, those: Taylor series expansion, the interpolation in points given by dominant roots estimates and the special extrapolation technique presented by the authors recently. The goal is to match dominant parts of both the spectra as close as possible. However, some properties from the so called strong stability point of view can not be, in principle, preserved. The presented simulation example demonstrates the accuracy and efficiency of all the methods.