That pronounced midrange is at least partly responsible for what's good about Valencias, which is the insight into what all the instruments are doing -- most of the music is in the midrange, and if you get that right, its pretty appealing. But it comes at the cost overshadowing what's going on in the bass, and the rolled off high end diminishes the sense of reality -- I'd say they lay out what is going better than most speakers, but it doesn't actually sound accurate or real. It's possible to overstate this, and on some pieces of music they can sound very convincing. But more often, for me, they are exciting, and a good tool for seeing what each instrument is doing, but I don't get as strong a sense as some speakers create that I'm listening to real people playing real instruments.
By the by -- I've just been listening to some Coronas (Altecs early 70s two way cone baby) and this seems to be doubly so for them -- on rock they sound big and fun, but on classical, though you can hear lots of detail, they are almost unlistenably colored.
