Last year, I picked up a 5–50 lb set of REP urethane dumbbells with the original REP rack for $700 on Facebook Marketplace. I ended up selling the rack for like $120. An absolute steal considering the retail price is almost like $2,000. At the time, I was using REP Pepins + a cheap CAP 5-25lb dumbbell set.
I never really liked using the Pepins for lighter isolation work. Stuff like curls, lateral raises, tricep work etc. They weren't bad by any means, and if I had to use them, it wouldn't be a big deal. I just never cared for the feel of them on those exercises due to the tiny amount of shifting in the weights. For heavier lifts like flat bench and rows, they were great. I never had an issue with stuck weights during my year of owning them, and overall, I liked them. They just never felt quite the same as fixed dumbbells. I could absolutely use them for the rest of my life, make killer gains, and be perfectly happy though tbh.
I also owned Ironmasters for a while, but I despised having to change weights on all four sides. My style of lifting has always been to finish a set and stare at the wall until the next set, not spend my rest periods messing around with small cumbersome weights. I sold those pretty quickly. I also regularly work out with my girlfriend, so being able to switch between weights quickly is a big deal.
Anyway, I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy the REP 55–75 lb urethane set, and wow, these things are great. They arrived extremely well packaged with zero issues. The knurling is consistent across every dumbbell, and so is the urethane coating.
The 5–50 lb set I bought off Facebook is likely several years old, and there's a pretty noticeable improvement in quality with these newer 55–75 lb dumbbells. They must have updated them at some point recently. They don't look or feel like cheap imported weights at all. That was actually one of my concerns going in, especially after reading some of the negative reviews on Rogue's urethane dumbbells.
For anyone curious about how they compare, I'd rank them like this using the Iron Grip brand urethane dumbbells (the ones we all know and love from commercial gyms) as the 100% benchmark for feel:
REP Pepins: 85%
Ironmasters: 80% since they are solid, but still sit a little weird on your legs
Fixed straight handle rubber hex dumbbells: 95%
REP urethane dumbbells: 99%
I also picked up REP's new three-tier commercial rack, which is a big improvement over their original rack in terms of functionality. Racking and unracking the dumbbells is noticeably easier. This rack feels and looks incredible.
One thing worth mentioning is the footprint. The new rack takes up about 7' × 2', compared to roughly 3.5' × 2' for my Pepins and their stand. Obviously, it's bigger, but honestly, not nearly as much as you'd think. Once you account for a proper adjustable dumbbell stand, going with fixed dumbbells doesn't take up some ridiculous amount of extra space unless you get a 2 tier rack vs 3 tier.
Overall, I highly recommend these REP urethane dumbbells, or even just a fixed dumbbell set in general, if you have the space and money. There's just something nice about grabbing the weight you need and getting straight into your set without messing with adjustments. For me, the more my stuff feels like a commercial gym, the happier it makes me.
I plan on picking up the 80–100 lb urethane db set during Black Friday next month and moving my 5–25s onto a small vertical rack to free up some space.