imo the detail aspect is very competitive and the way the sound is crammed into your ears like summer said is a big part of that. That being said, they can't match high end headphones in other technicalities like dynamics, soundstage, etc in a lot of cases.

The portability, light weight, and sound isolation is a big plus though. I love how I can bring my IEMs everywhere and get so much performance out of such a convenient form factor.

It's a different type of listening experience though so I enjoy it equally as much and increasingly more as I get more IEMs.

None of my current IEMs really get close to my LCD-X in terms of sound quality but I'll reevaluate this when my SA6 Ultra arrives.