Jay,(posted 8996 days ago)You are mistaking color response for tonal range. Tonal range is the amount of light difference that the film can display from black to white. And how fine of steps of light difference you can see (not really tonal range, effects tonal preception).
Color response has to do with how the film turns various colors and intensities of those colors into shades of gray. This will effect how things like lips with show as darker or lighter. B&W film typically responds to blue more than red. So blues tend to be whiter and reds darker on the B&W image (print). With extended red sensitivity, reds go lighter.
So it sounds like T400CN has a little less red sensitivity than TMax 400 or HP5+. If so a little filtering can bring it back to the way you prefer.