Well even if they're custom, at one point, when you sell a (single) very nicely finished speaker for 425$, there has to be price compromises somewhere... (or lower profit margins!!! ) If you doubled say the money you had for the woofer, that would most probably result in improvements in the woofer. It surely wouldn't make the woofer sound twice as good, but still, I'm sure improvements could be made... The problem in my view, how much improvement for how much money? Ascend is great at finding that perfect balance. Couldn't have been more satisfied with my 340SEs or Sierras. Both fantastic for the price.
And if I had to answer my own earlier question, if I'd be willing to pay 2 times or 3 times as much for a more expensive and hopefully improved Sierra, would I do it? Probably wouldn't, for now... But actually, the fact that Ascend would release such a speaker, would indicate to me that Dave thought it would be worthwhile to release, and so, for people to buy, and so it would indicate to me that it most definitely be a worthwhile purchase... And chances are I'd end up purchasing them, like I did the Sierras... It's not like Ascend releases 5 new "flavor of the month" speakers per year anyhow... It would probably be the same as when I upgraded to Sierras, love the 340SEs, new Ascend speaker is even better with similar bang for the buck value?! I want!
But to go back to tweeters/woofers, again, price isn't everything, more expensive isn't necessarily better (though it can help...), just like Ascend speakers, end performance depends on many things...
Anyhow, as I said, Sierra performance is fantastic, so obviously the drivers are doing their job as they should. And they're doing so at a great price... Sometimes just throwing more money at a problem isn't the solution. Actually, there you have it, Dave's approach results in amazing product for the price as opposed to just another extremely expensive speaker which gets lost in the mass of others expensive speakers... Still, so counter intuitive not to think that throwing more money at tweeters/drivers won't result in a better product And really, in the end it wouldn't because it would drive up the price and wouldn't make 'it' a better speaker, just a more expensive speaker... Which seems to be the game for most other audio related company!!!
I can think of one company which started with a 1500$ speaker, and after minor crossover, connectors, wire changes, a new finish color, ended up with a >3000$ product... The SAME speaker! Just make them biwirable, change internal copper wire for silver, add esoteric resistances, caps, give it a new designation/name, and woila, go from 1500$ to 2000$, then >3000$!!!