Not saying there is or isn't a buff, but I got BLESSING OF THE GIFTED today just to see if I noticed a difference, and was getting some Ascended Shards during chest farming--think I got 3 over the course of around 100-150 chests.
In all my chest farming before I never received ascendant materials, which is the only reason I think there might indeed be some hidden buff there. Just my $.02.
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I have found ascendant material in consecutive chests with without using any of the speaker stuff. Just random