Lightning Audio has been in the car audio business since 1992, so while they aren't the oldest company out there, they aren't exactly new guys. They hit the streets with a very successful line of monster capacitors at a time when people were just discovering some of the problems of running high-powered amplifier systems with a 12 volt power source. One the company's earlier and most interesting products was the Lightning Audio Aeroport. I did a rather thorough analysis of these low-distortion curvilinear ports in the September 1996 issue of Voice Coil, The Periodical for the Loudspeaker Industry (for those of you who never heard of Voice Coil, I'm the editor, and the publication goes out to loudspeaker professionals and manufacturers) and again discussed this type of port in the Sixth Edition of the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook (page 66). Suffice it to say, the Lightning Audio has developed a reputation for staying close to the leading edge of car audio technology which undoubtedly explains why the company was voted an Inc. 500 company in 1997 and purchased by Rockford Corporation (Rockford Corp. owns Rockford Fosgate, MB Quart, Q Logic and a number of other companies) in 1999.
The subject of this review is the Strike S3.10/4, a new 10" subwoofer. Lightning got into the car subwoofer business in 2000 and the Strikeseries is their latest offering. The S3.10 is an entry level subwoofer, but has its share of high tech features. Lightning started with a well designed stamped frame that has a substantial 30mm (1 3/16") of depth below the spider mounting shelf to accommodate rearward excursion. Attached to the frame is a double stack of ferrite magnets sandwiched between the front plate and a forged T-yoke that has a 1" vent for cooling. Covering the motor is a rubber magnet boot with the Lightning Audio logo molded into the surface. Strike 3.10/4's cone assembly consists of an injection molded polypropylene cone attached to the frame with a thermoplastic (probably CBR, a rubber compound) surround. This cone by itself would be fairly stiff, but the use of a 4.5" high temp ABS molded dustcap "braces" the cone at its mid point and the result is a very rigid assembly. The dustcap is a 3D type with the Lightning logo and three-color printing, so it also looks cool.
The Strike surround is moderately wide and has a width of 1.125" and a height of about 0.5". While I have mentioned this before in previous sub reviews, it's worth pointing out again that the very wide surrounds that are often used in car audio subwoofers always involve a tradeoff for the designer. The wide and deep profile may provide more mechanical excursion capability, but the surround's width causes the cone to be smaller. This means that the cone assembly has to move further to make the same low frequency notes compared to a larger cone with a more narrow surround, so it's not at all a perfect solution to the problem of long excursion. The Strike's surround provides a reasonable compromise between surround width and cone area. The remaining compliance is supplied by a pair of linear Nomex spiders that have the voice coil lead wires woven into the body of the spider. The woofers "transmission", the device that converts the power of the magnetic motor into motion, otherwise known as a voice coil, uses round wire wound on a 2" diameter Kapton former (Kapton is a high temperature Dupont plastic material that works great as a voice coil former).