I'll go against the grain and say that they come close- but not at the price point that you're talking about. For $100, I think you're better off full-sized. But once you get into the higher tiers of both IEM's and headphones, I think the line becomes blurred.
It's really hard to divorce the value of portability from the equation, too. I'd argue that a decent portable setup can come fairly close from a sound quality perspective, but offer decent value when "ease of use" gets factored into the equation.
I mean, for $500 you can have really good quality with you no matter where you are in a small form factor. Sure, you might get a comparable full-sized setup for $300 (maybe), but are you going to be using a computer with that setup? Because if you're going to be using a traditional setup of a CD player, amp, headphones, which is a truer comparison, then it's not so simple.
I don't think the technological changes that have improved 'usability' gets nearly enough weight in these comparisons. A pair of JH13pro's and a HiFiMan player could be every bit as good as multi-thousand dollar rigs.
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