Oh and Fry's Dumbledore IS the quintessential interpretation of the character. Any Harry Potter fan who hasn't sampled Stephen Fry owes it to themselves to, it's stellar. I haven't heard of anyone raised on Fry who listened to Dale after and was converted, but I've encountered many people accustomed to Dale who much preferred Fry's reading after trying.
Fry also has this uncanny ability to create the perfect voice for every character, but he also really excels in the non-speech parts of the book. With Dale I'm always aware that I'm listening to an audiobook, whereas Fry creates such distinctive characters and describes the magical world so vividly and colourfully that listening to him is a deeply immersive experience. Dale is great, but I find Dale's reading is a little monotonous and his voices all sound vaguely similar. His reading is so much more impassioned, he injects so much more energy into the words and really brings the story to life. It might be a cultural difference (I'm a Londoner so was raised on Fry) but to me and every one of my Potter-geek friends, Stephen Fry IS Harry Potter.
