Hey Nick!
I've only had one client use Archer that I'm aware of. I premastered and Paul Gold cut lacquers. They say:
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there were a couple records that were not visibly warped but there was a background fuzz with some weird changes in volume ... I guess we will find out the quality of the pressing when we start selling them
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Not exactly glowing.
Musicol I've had a couple of negative experiences with. One was where Musicol themselves cut the lacquers. Though I had already premastered the disc that was sent to them, the premastered audio somehow ended up going through a Finalizer ahead of the lathe (?!). The test pressing sounded *nothing* like what I sent them... thin and midrangey. We demanded a truly flat recut and then all was OK. On another job, the label took my advice and had Paul cut, and they had no beef with the sound of the records, but they said that Musicol was presenting "unacceptable delays," so I'm currently strongly recommending against them. I wasn't too impressed with them when I called to work through the first incident. I left the conversation with no confidence that the Finalizer wouldn't be fired up for future "flat cuts."
Paul recently told me about Alpha Records in Florida:
http://www.alpharecordsinc.com/I've heard one thing they pressed that I premastered (again with Paul cutting) and I thought it turned out nicely. I have a friend who is incredibly picky about his vinyl who thought it was a touch noisier than he likes to hear, but I thought it seemed completely within the "reasonable" range of expected artifacts.
I think the result from United can be quite good when a known-good lacquer cutter is involved, but I work with at least one label who had bad experiences with them ("bad" as in having the wrong lacquer used for a side "bad") who never went back.
As always, GZ in the Czech Republic remains a slight crapshoot. Tho some of the stuff I've premastered has come back from there sounding unbelievably good, I had to work through one particularly awful cutting job from them recently that shook my confidence. Sending them lacquers is an option, tho a risky one -- there's always the chance that customs might screw up the lacquers during an inspection.
Lots of fun to be had out there in vinyl land... Good luck!
Carl