Just my .02 but I think the Bose is overkill for what you are doing. Both in power and price. I think its aimed more at bands who need a powerful PA and would use the matching subs. And can lay out over 4K for a complete system.
It's"warmer" because it has a 12" woofer compared tot he 8" in the Compact. And the power is 5X.
For my smaller setups I use 1 JBL 515xt ( discontinued but the new model is the 610 ) 600 watts with a 15" woofer and HF horn with seperate amps. Even one is more power than I ever need but its only 32 lbs. and has a 3 channel mixer on the back. And I don't know why but I do think it sounds better if I run both outputs of my BK9 into two channels of the speaker.
Theres lots of stuff out there so look around.