The Van Damme UP-LCOFC Hi-Fi Grade speaker cable sits at the top of Van Damme’s residential and audiophile range, above the Blue Series Studio Grade and Black Series Tour Grade lines. While the Blue and Black Series cables use standard oxygen-free copper, the Hi-Fi Grade uses Ultra-Pure Linear Crystal OFC (UP-LCOFC) — a higher-purity conductor with improved grain alignment that reduces barriers to electron flow across crystal boundaries.
Conductor and Construction
Each conductor in the 4.00mm² variant comprises seven bundles of 73 strands of 0.10mm ultra-fine copper wire, giving a total of 511 individual strands per conductor. This 7-way plait construction minimises the skin effect by keeping the individual strand diameter well below the skin depth at audio frequencies. The transparent PVC insulation allows visual identification of the conductors, and the shotgun (twin-run, no outer jacket) construction simplifies separation at termination points.
Practical Considerations
At 4.00mm² per conductor, the cable presents a resistance of just 4.70 Ω/km — significantly lower than the 2.50mm² variant’s 7.40 Ω/km. This makes the 4.00mm² well suited to longer cable runs, low-impedance loudspeakers, and high-power amplifier applications where minimising resistive losses is critical. The overall dimensions of 14.00 x 5.00mm remain manageable for domestic routing along skirting boards and through cable trunking. Sold per metre for custom-length installations, allowing exact cable runs without waste.
Applications
Van Damme notes that the 4.00mm² and 6.00mm² variants in this range are used for critical near-field monitoring in world-class recording and mastering studios, and that this cable is the speaker cable of choice for more than one high-end hi-fi equipment manufacturer. In domestic systems, the 4.00mm² cross-section is particularly beneficial for runs exceeding 5m or where loudspeaker impedance drops below 4Ω.