ascend sierra tower with raal or Focal Aria 936

I'm pretty happy laying out a few hundred bucks more for the certainty of hearing what I'm buying and supporting my local independent retailer. It's in their best interest to make me as happy as possible. Not the case with the factory direct crowd. 

The factory direct companies live or die by their online reputation, they have to make you as happy as they can.

I can only go by my own experience.  Paradigm is a loudspeaker company that designed and made their own parts and drivers for decades, and I owned their second from very top of the line speaker, the Signature S6, which cost over 5000.  I owned these speakers for 7 years, and ran them first with Emotiva gear, then Parasound.  In my time, I've also owned 5 other models from Paradigm, from the Monitor and Performance series.  

And I can tell you that you can get equal performance of those $5000 speakers for much less money from Ascend(I've also owned 3 different pairs of Ascend speakers).  I compared them side by side and could not believe my ears.  

Believe whatever makes you happy, and spend multiple thousands like I did.

That's great for you, but do you really believe people's tastes and listening environments are so monolithic that Ascend's products are ideal for most? The Focal Aria 900 series is broadly considered better than Paradigm's competitive products, and you're saying you loved them and you now love Ascend? I'm not sold on Ascend right there because I've heard Paradigms. They're nice, but I think Golden Ear has a solid edge on them with their AMT and I think the Focal 936 trounces them in terms of imaging, dynamics, and neutrality. Beyond that, people who love B&W's dark tone rarely like Focal. Ascend can't possibly be that ideal of a speaker. 

"Ascend can't possibly be that ideal of a speaker"
- kosst_amojan

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out"
- the music label Decca, 1962, when announcing they were passing on signing the Beatles

"The earth can't possibly be round".
- Everyone, pre-6th Century BC

You forget the price of tea in China.

I’m sure not loosing a wink of sleep over not having heard some obscure speaker I’d never come across had I not clicked this link.

For the record, it was a well known fact over 3000 years ago that the earth was round. The ancient Egyptians not only determined it was round but accurately calculated it's size.