At last, they have arrived. Snug and unassuming in a brown Jiffy bag, they were there on the doormat when I came in from the rain. Neat Japanese characters marked them out at once and I smiled as I shook off my jacket. Few are the days when this simple excitement comes upon me; even birthdays and Christmas don’t guarantee such satisfaction to a cynic wary of last-minute gifts. Now, three months after ordering, my batch of limited-edition reissue jazz-fusion CDs is here. If that sounds painfully pretentious, humour me – my neighbour has a penchant for vintage typewriters.

I’ll admit that in the era of Amazon Prime and vast libraries of music available online, getting worked up about three obscure albums seems a little silly, if not sad. These are the glory days of instant gratification: why wait for your next indulgence? This demand has been applied to every aspect of modern life, from the moped platoons waiting to deliver any dish to the door in our hour of hunger, to the 0% finance deals that save us the tedium of saving for a car. It’s a consumer’s paradise where everything is within reach 24/7. Rome may not have been built in a day but we’ve come a long way since then.

Instant access to products that previously would be available according to season or time of manufacture has made us ignorant of the effort that generates them. What once was prized for the labour that produced it is now judged by its immediate appeal. Yesterday’s purchase arrives today and it will be something else tomorrow. But of all the commodities that we fill our lives with, the digital are the most expendable. Stripped of their material substance, our engagement with them is purely superficial, mediated by electronic hardware that soon becomes outdated. What’s more, digital can be infinitely duplicated, creating an inexhaustible supply.

Before I’m branded as a hot-blooded Luddite, it is important to recognise the innumerable advances that digitalisation makes possible. The abundance of information openly obtainable online is awesome and, in bypassing traditional gatekeepers of knowledge, can be a great force for democracy. As someone who carries in his pocket the complete works of Shakespeare, Howlin Wolf’s back catalogue, and the dictionaries for three languages, I’m hardly in a position to get snooty about digital media. But whilst much has been said on the economic, ethical, and artistic ramifications of this technological development, the way we appreciate different mediums is given less airtime.

I’ve long been a fan of the compact disc. Since receiving a Walkman on my seventh birthday, these shiny plastic plates have brought much joy. Back then, my collection was limited to a single album: The Cream of Clapton. Every night after I’d been put to bed I listened to the entire compilation, from the first song to the last. When iPods came along a few years later, my fondness for CDs didn’t waver. Converting one format to another was straightforward and my iTunes library was simply a digital double of the discs on my shelf. Not only do CDs offer a choice of mediums, but the cover notes often reveal unreported insights to the recording process or (in Steely Dan’s case) outrageous anecdotes well worth reading. It’s also nice to know that if the technosphere falls apart I’ve got a backup of the last 20 years’ musical investigations.

Certainly, the element of discovery is one of the big draws towards physical albums. Anyone who’s spent time flicking through bargain buckets in record shops will know the thrill of buying an album for the artwork or that one track you’ve heard before. With a bit of luck, this stab in the dark is the first step on a new audio adventure more mesmerizing and unexpected than anything the algorithms will push your way. Crucially, the act of purchasing the whole album rather than downloading singles makes us more likely to open our ears to the unknown. We all want bang for our buck and after paying for 10 tracks rather than one, chances are that we will listen to them.

In a way, listening to an album for the first time isn’t so different from reading a book (all the more so when the album has been composed as a complete piece rather than a basic amalgamation of singles). These days, listening to music is often a means of satisfying our tastes by returning to what we already know. Whether on the radio or on our playlists, the same songs are repeated and reaffirm our taste for the familiar. By contrast, on our first encounter with a new album we become absorbed by our interest in the unknown. Just as the narrative direction of a book holds our attention from one page to the next, a similar spirit of exploration can be evoked by music.

Digitisation hasn’t completely put an end to this; DJs play an important role in exposing us to songs we wouldn’t have heard otherwise, often arranged into compelling sets. But the shift away from physical formats also has a tendency to steer us towards individual songs rather than complete albums.

It was this sense of musical trepidation that came over me as I slotted each of my long-awaited discs into the CD player. I’d heard the odd song on a couple of the albums but the rest were a mystery: unavailable online and with only five star Japanese ratings to recommend them. Just as I would for a book or film, I settled on the sofa for the much-anticipated serenade.

Rampant digitisation has made portable activities that once required stationary equipment. In many modern households a laptop fulfils all our entertainment needs, rendering any other audio-visual apparatus obsolete. Smaller still, the mighty smartphone can be book, telly, iPod and a thousand other things all in one.

But whilst a single device can cover a variety of mediums, format-specific kit undoubtedly enhances the experience. Not necessarily because it performs better (whether it’s playing music or films), but because it removes many of the distractions that come with having our activity mediated by the Internet and the external disturbances that listening when out and about entails.

Unlike its compact successors, the hi-fi experience is not a movable feast but one that locks you into a static space and forces you to focus on the music. Nowadays, it’s something of a luxury to devote our undivided attention to a single pursuit. But for all the boundaries pushed by recent innovation, it’s one that is well worth indulging in. Meanwhile I await my next order.