Please read my post again, I said I found them, the 765, a bit bright and forward when I was selling them. We had speakers from PSB, Kef and others that were smoother than that generation of Mission. I also said they should do well with tubes.
Out of curiosity, did you ever spend much time with the last generation of 770 and 780, the ones with the semi horn loaded tweeters, stepped baffles and two recessed grooves around the front of the cabinet? Those did not sound anything like most other UK speakers so I would personally not generalize and say since Mission are British they all sound a certain way. I found those 770s rather nasty and I read a review of the 780, in a UK magazine, which was perhaps the most negative review I have ever seen on a speaker in that price range. It was backed up by measurements and I did not really disagree. They were replaced by the 764 and 765 IIRC which were better but I would recommend giving them a good listen, as with any potential speaker purchase, and drawing your own conclusions.
The recommendation for Klipsch, and JBL, was based on the type of music mentioned in the original post in case the Mission did not appeal. I had plenty of customer who listened to rock and rejected Missions outright as not having the type of sound they were looking for. They often preferred the Klipsch or JBL so I am passing that on.
I am not saying anything is good or bad, just making suggestions as to what to listen to and explaining what the differences might be based on thousands of hours of working with dozens of models from each company. As always, the listener should pick for themselves.
