Was the shipping packaging damaged? Yup. Are there gaps in the already non-uniform welds? Yup. Does it hold weight and function as a circus dumbbell would? Also yup. Did I get it super cheap during one of Titan's many sales? I sure did. She's not the prettiest girl at the dance, but she'll do.

I bought this to replicate a car deadlift and it's been sitting around since then. It's not a terrible piece of equipment, but it's very specific and I would use other equipment for its other advertised uses. If I had to redesign it I would remove the rotating handles and bring the static handles in, because they are extremely far out. Ideally I would move the static handles in to where the rotating handles are. I also had to "manually persuade" one of the rotating handles into alignment with a metallic object of greater mass, but everything else was fine in terms of assembly and use.

If anyone compliments something in my gym it's usually these plates. The finish on them is great, but a few of my plates have small casting voids (nothing huge) that are more visual imperfections than anything. Other than that they are very striking. They're calibrated plates as well so no issues with advertised weight vs actual weight. I was able to get my initial batch when they were commercial available and on sale, but I understand that they're a bit more difficult to get nowadays. I would still recommend getting some today if you like the look and don't want to shell out the money for a class set of Ivankos.

This thlng is shockingly good for how little it costs, nevermind all the things that you can do with it. Space is at a premium in my shed, and the combination of functionality and small footprint made this an easy purchase. My only negative is there's a bit of slop with the carrier, and the 1:1 pulley feels less fluid than the 2:1 pulley setup. It's still insanely good for the price.