The majority of scholars (such as Qatar’s Islamic Affairs Ministry, Ibn Baaz, and the UAE Islamic Affairs Ministry) do think that reading is better than listening, but they have no evidence for this except their own personal opinions and unauthentic sayings of the Prophet. To me reading a book or listening to it are the same thing. I listened to the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings books (instead of reading them with my eyes), does this mean that I somehow understood or “benefited” less from the books than if I had read them?
I suffer from dry eyes and late at night when I read Quran, if my eyes start to feel bad, I switch to listening. Does this mean that God automatically drops my rewards because I decided to receive God’s word through my ears instead of my eyes?
To me, Islam is a religion based on logic, not magic. No good deed is magically better than another, and whether I decide to receive the Quran through my eyes or ears my reward depends on my effort and sacrifice (how much attention I give to the meaning and how much time I dedicate to it), not on some random eyes-are-better-than-ears prejudice.