How does the sound compare to the Genelecs?
Yamaha HS8 - very full range, from deep lows all the way to the very top end. They are quite "present" speakers with a strong midrange and high end. You probably need to roll off more high end and maybe the very low end than with other speakers. I find these are like good headphones, differences in the tone of the guitar really come through, like different amps or cabs or EQ. That can be good to hear the details but it can be distracting if you just want to plug in and play. But at low volumes if you roll off the highs you can get it to sound closer to an actual amp.
Genelec 8020 - strong midrange, maybe a little more even in the mids than the Yamaha, but nowhere near as full in the lows or crisp in the highs. They can sound a bit dull and boxy, and the low end gets exaggerated in a bad way as it approaches the limits of the speaker and the port frequency. For guitar it kind of muddies up the sounds in the highs that makes different amps sound unique. I can't hear as much of the detail with these. And with the small size it's not similar at all to the vibe of an amp even at low volumes.
Bose Companion - not really in the same league as the others sonically. They can't reproduce the high end at all but are decent in the midrange. They seem to be built to get as much low end out of the little speakers as possible. All that is bad for listening to music but for playing guitar it's actually kind of good because it's a little closer to an actual guitar speaker. It reminds me of the Yamaha THR10 amp where you can get a surprisingly big sound out of a small speaker.
So yeah, the Bose speakers aren't amazing for all around use, and I see they raised the price from $100 to $150 which might make them overpriced. But for the specific use case of playing guitar while traveling in a hotel, they aren't a bad choice.
If I could go back in time before I spent a bunch of money on monitors, I'd probably spring for the Yamaha HS8's or HS7's first. And if I needed a small monitor for an alternate mix or sound, I'd probably try and settle on the iLoud Micros or something. The rabbit hole of trying to find really good but really small monitors didn't work out for me.
