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Product name:Reloop RP8000MK2
Manufacturer: Reloop - Münster - Germany
Cost: New online prices vary but seem to start at about $925 (Currency conversion)
Reviewer: David Hoehl - TNT-Audio USA
Reviewed: March, 2026

Time flies like an arrow, the saying goes.^[1] Somehow eight years have passed since I first propounded a list of turntables that came close to an ideal 78 player as outlined in a yet-earlier article, and more than six have passed since I last posted an update. Meanwhile, in my own system nothing has displaced my initial top choice, the venerable (and scarce, long-orphaned) Strathclyde STD305D, with variable pitch across the full range of historical speeds and unique digital display showing actual platter speed in RPM. For one lengthy period beginning in mid-2022, however, the Strathclyde was out of service with a hard-to-solve maintenance issue, what I called the "time bomb" problem in my original recommendation. Naturally, I looked around to see if any suitable substitute had emerged, and so I became aware of the Reloop RP8000MK2, promising because it also has a built-in digital display. What followed was the usual inconclusive foolishness we 78 collectors must routinely endure from an industry for which we're not even an afterthought as I tried and failed to get a straight answer about just what that display could show—RPM? per cent deviation from center speed? just beats per minute? the current temperature atop Mt. Everest? I managed to confirm per cent deviation but never could establish whether it would show RPM, and eventually I threw up my hands, submitted the Strathclyde for repairs, and relegated the question of the Reloop to that burner where all doomed undertakings go.

Well, as long as you don't watch it, even a pot sitting on the back burner can come to a boil. Thoughts of the Reloop kept nagging at me, off and on, and finally last July, with the US tariff mess looking to get even messier, I decided “now or never” and nabbed a heavily discounted open box/scratch-and-dent special from one of the major online retailers. From that point to present it's been my exclusive electronic playback device for analogue disks. Here, on the basis of a half-year's acquaintance, are my impressions, starting with reference to my earlier list of ideal qualities:

• A strong, well-regulated motor. To Reloop, the RP8000MK2 isn't just a turntable, it's an “Upper Torque Hybrid Turntable Instrument.” In practical terms, that means that yes, it has an amply strong motor. It's direct drive. It's shown no problems holding speed, even when turning heavy 14" shellac pressings, and a pair of knobs gives some control over the speed of start and stop, if adjustments are desired.
• A precision-manufactured tonearm. The Reloop comes with a fully manual dedicated arm, described as “low resonance,” made of “particularly lightweight and rigid satin aluminium material.” It's supported by an oval full gimbal mount and can readily handle both outside-start and inside-start discs. With my array of moving magnet cartridges by Shure (V15Vx, V15III, and M97xE), Pickering (XV15/625E and V/690E), and LP Gear (The Vessel A78SP), mostly fitted with various custom-sized styli, it has consistently met the demands of tracking antique and modern records, even those with surface deformations. In particular, with an appropriately-tipped Pickering V/690E, it has successfully negotiated nearly all the Pathe vertical cut sapphire discs, notoriously hard to track on modern gear, that I've tried on it, outside start and center start alike. To put things in perspective, the Reloop arm has performed at least as well as the SME 1009 Series 2 Improved arms on my vintage Strathclyde and Fons turntables and immeasurably better than the miserable Syntec arm on my Technics SP-15 or either of the stock arm types I've encountered on Lenco tables. (About the last-named, see a discussion spurred by reader comments in my original series of articles about 78 turntables. And, yeah, I've tended to accumulate vintage 78-capable turntables the way infrequently vacuumed floors accumulate dust bunnies, not that I'd know anything about that by personal experience. Um. Er.)
• Infinitely variable speeds from 60 RPM to something over 100 RPM.^[2] The Reloop offers center speeds of 33, 45, and 78; each of the first two has a marked selector button, and pressing both together yields 78. A green telltale lights when the turntable is spinning at one of the center speeds. Pitch variation is available in three separately selectable ranges, adjustable by a long-throw slider: +/-8%, +/-16%, and +/-50%. As with speed selection, each of the first two has a marked button, and pressing the two together selects the last. Adjusting away from a center speed turns off the telltale. Taken together, these options more than cover the necessary range for any record the platter can accommodate. Indeed, boosting 78 by 50% takes it to 117 RPM (it actually does—I checked), 7 more than the top of Pathe's stated range for its regular center-start discs and nearly enough for the big 120-130 RPM 20-inch discs if there were room to fit them onto the platter (there isn't). A separate button, inobviously labeled “reset,” cuts out the pitch selectors and engages a quartz lock at the selected center speed. Toggling it back off returns the speed to whatever was set when it was engaged.
• A built-in real time speed display, preferably showing two digits after the decimal point. Although in this regard it falls short of the Strathclyde, which displays RPM to one digit after the decimal, the Reloop does have a real time display, which puts it far ahead of any other current model known to me. Apparently in keeping with the preferences of its target DJ market, the Reloop's display reads in per cent deviation from nominal speed, not RPM, which for the 78 collector is less convenient, as it turns each speed choice into a math problem. To get around that issue, with the help of a handheld digital tachometer I put together the chart below, which shows the value on the Reloop's display for each speed from 68 to 100 RPM in half-RPM increments. I've taped a copy to my Reloop's plinth. Consulting a chart is less convenient than readng the display directly, but it certainly beats fiddling with a handheld tachometer for each speed adjustment, and soon it becomes second nature.

• Provision for minimizing the effects of eccentric pressings. The Reloop does not address this item. Neither does the Strathclyde.
• Interchangeable headshells. The Reloop's included arm takes standard SME type headshells.
• Built-in switching to select vertical or lateral cut. Neither the Reloop nor the Strathclyde provides this feature.
• Provision for automatic continuous variation of rotational speed between user-specified values for any two points on the record's surface.. Neither the Reloop nor the Strathclyde (nor anything else on the market) incorporates this feature. With its long-throw slider and built-in display, however, I think that manual adjustment across a record side should be doable, if tedious.
• Easy adjustment of tracking angle. Encircling the Reloop's tonearm base is a large knurled ring that allows for easily raising the tonearm by up to 6 mm. This feature is a real boon for playing the thick Edison Diamond Discs and 14" Pathe discs (see below).
• Low price tag. We all have our own definition of “low.” The Reloop, at between $925 and $1,000, costs more than chump change, but it compares favorably with its competition. Among modern turntables, the Reloop clearly is modeled on the Technics SL-1200 series and competes with them in the DJ market. List price for an SL-1200MK7 is about $1,300, and generally that seems to be most dealers' asking price, although a cursory Google search showed one or two retailers offering it for about the same price as the Reloop. For playing 78s, I'd say there's no contest: Reloop costs less or at least no more, but it has greater speed variability (50% vs. 16% maximum) and the digital readout, which is not offered by Technics. Compared to vintage alternatives, the cost of a new Reloop probably is not a lot different from what one would spend for one of the top choices after adding a component arm and paying for the servicing inevitably necessary for decades-old gear, assuming a technician were available who could figure out how to source or replicate necessary parts. Taking those factors into account, the Reloop appears at least to be a good value.
• A comely, affable, minimally clad assistant to change the records for you and provide other entertainment as appropriate—or not! Alas (or a lass), I still have yet to see a turntable with this feature.

A few other positive points bear mention. The component has a die cast aluminum platter and a heavy, stout plinth—said to incorporate materials to minimize resonance, with the thumping bass-heavy environments typically inhabited by DJs in mind—resting on large rubber pads. Tracking force and antiskate adjustment are easy, with markings on the counterweight to guide the way, although the degree of antiskate selection tops out at 3 grams. Finally, it's worth noting that as a current production model but not a brand new release from a company safely in business, the Reloop presents neither “first adopter” nor “time bomb” issues: any teething problems have had time to show themselves, and it's not prone to the kind of age-related issues that plague equipment built decades ago. If it does need service, presumably parts and schematics will be readily available.

Nothing in this world is perfect, of course. Here are the character flaws that I have found in the Reloop:

• Issues playing 14" records. The Reloop has just enough clearance between spindle and tonearm base to accommodate 14" records. Unfortunately, it emulates the Technics design that puts the on/off switch and strobe light in a cylindrical drum jutting up from the plinth to a point above platter height and set just slightly too close. It's frustrating; just maybe an eighth or three sixteenths of an inch farther out would make the difference between “just barely” and “not quite.” (See photo below, showing the overlap with a 14" Pathe disc—and, yes, it turns at 23.7% over 78 RPM, which works out to 96.5 RPM.) Luckily, as the Reloop's spindle is quite tall, enough records can be stacked underneath the 14" disc to raise it just above the drum without overtopping the spindle—I keep a group of junk LPs strapped together with packing tape for the purpose—and the tonearm base's height adjustment suffices to compensate. A lesser (or even non-) issue is that a stalk containing an “LED needle light” also is set too close, and it's much taller. Fortunately, that one simply seats in an RCA type socket and is easily removed for playing the oversized discs.

• The “Needle Light.” Although, as noted, easily removed, the light can't be turned off other than with the master power switch, buried in an inaccessible spot on the back of the plinth.
• DJ-specific features. The turntable is designed to work hand-in-glove with serato DJ software on a computer. Hence, it is laden with features and controls of no use to the 78 collector, most visibly the array of white light-up buttons to the left of the platter. Most of the DJ-related features are of no concern, but one actually did make itself a nuisance: the “standby mode” that was active by default when I received the turntable. Its effect was to launch an unending light show shortly after the turntable was turned off:

  Eventually, with the help of a Reddit post, I found Reloop's instructions for disabling this feature, which does not affect the component's function as a 78 player. Reloop directed the following:

How can standby mode be switched off?
By holding the SHIFT and LOOP buttons and simultaneously turning on the turntable, you will enter the advanced setup menu.
Now each drum pad has a function of its own that can be turned on/off.
When lit green, the function is activated, when lit red, the function is deactivated.




No. 2 is the one you want. For our purposes, stay away from no. 5! Once you've deactivated the standby mode, it will stay deactivated if you have a power outage or unplug the turntable to relocate it.

• The spindle. The Reloop's spindle is imperceptibly larger in diameter than those of my Strathclyde and Fons turntables, and as a result I've encountered a few records, 78s and LPs alike, with center holes that would bind on it or even that didn't quite fit. In nearly every case, a light half-turn application of a hardware store reamer sufficed to enlarge the hole just enough to seat comfortably. The exception was an Edison Diamond Disc; no reamer is up to treating one of those! For that, I ended up elevating the record in the same way as with 14" Pathe discs. That worked, but awkwardly.

• No dust cover. The Reloop has predrilled mounting positions on the plinth, but a dust cover is a $100 extra accessory sold separately. That black plinth does show dust!
• The turntable mat. The supplied mat is a thin, light disk of a hard felt-like material, smooth on the back. It can slip under heavy pressings.
• The manual. I've seen worse manuals, but it really isn't comprehensive. For instance, I was able to learn how to defeat the standby mode only by searching the Internet and following a link from a Reddit posting to a page of Reloop's site.

I'll note a couple of oddities about the strobe system in passing. First, although four rows of markings are on the edge of the platter, only one actually denotes the set center speed; the strobe light is smart enough to adjust such that if no pitch variance is dialed in the marks of that single row appear to stand still regardless of whether the turntable is running at 33, 45, or 78 RPM. Second, the three other rows are strobe markings for -3.3%, +3.3%, and +7.2%. The purpose of this arrangement is not immediately obvious to me, but I gather it's of some value to DJs. All I can say is that the world of DJs is every bit as arcane as that of 78 collectors!

Also worth noting is that the Reloop includes an internal phono preamp with line level output in addition to traditional low level phono output for an external phono preamp. According to Reloop, it allows for connecting the turntable to two different mixers simultaneously. I have no idea how the internal preamp compares to a component type or the phono section of an integrated amp or receiver, and given that it offers solely RIAA equalization, it is of little or no use for vintage 78s. It would be useable for modern, vinyl stereo microgroove 78s like those from Rivermont, however.

Conclusion

In summary, the Reloop RP8000MK2 represents solid value for the money in a current package. It has all the most important features for collectors of vintage records, some not otherwise readily available if available at all; in particular, its inclusion of an onboard speed readout, albeit not in its optimal form, is a tremendous convenience for those of us who collect records from the acoustic and early electric eras and something that, as far as I know, other manufacturers do not offer. By contrast, it has few negative issues, none especially serious. With a fond glance toward the vintage tables that have served us so well, I'd say we have a new “first choice” turntable for the playback of pre-LP disks of all ages and formats up to 14-inch diameter.

[1] - The corollary, “fruit flies like a banana,” need not detain us here.

[2] - Speed variability; the next item, a digital display; and two or three others are of most concern for those who wish to play records from before around 1930. I won't belabor information I've written before; suffice it to say, in the years leading up to the industry's adoption of electric recording techniques in 1925 and for a few thereafter, what we call “78s” commonly were recorded at other speeds, not infrequently contrary to the labels' own claims. They can range from in the 60s to 100 RPM or even more. Accordingly, if you plan to play these early records, you need flexibility, and this article is especially addressed to you. If you play only 78s from, say, the big band era and later, some of the concerns stressed here may not be as much of an issue.

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© Copyright 2026 David Hoehl - drh@tnt-audio.com - www.tnt-audio.com

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