Ha, once again
Lommy and
Esty managed to beat me in saying what I wanted to.
Anyway, good that it's been said - I think Tolkien really managed to write a book which reaches the quality of the old sagas, not just in the setting, the theme of the story and things like this, but also in the way how it is suitable for reading aloud. Indeed, if we still were a culture of storytellers rather than readers and movie-watchers, I believe LotR would be a very good tale to narrate in that way. (Okay, in some way even better if it was written in verse
)
Personally, I don't have that much experience with listening to LotR, though I have been listening to the Slovak radio adaptation of LotR, which is not pure reading, but acting, of course. It also has its spirit, but I need to second others on this one who have said that the reading makes the story a much more personalised and fitting your own imagination. I think the problem with the listening is that the actor puts his own diction into it, and he stresses things in some way, where you would read it differently yourself. The listening is already an interpretation - and you can think for yourself where to put the emphasis, for example, whether to read "to ISENGARD with doom we come", or "to Isengard with doom we COME", or "to Isengard WITH DOOM we come"... etc.