Can someone explain the differant CD formats?


I was looking on the Acoustic Sounds website, and many jazz CDs are listed as: CD, DTS CD, Gold CD, HDCD CD, XRCD CD, etc. I would like to purchase some of them, but are they compatible with my inexpensive Cambridge 540C V2 player?
sequel22
Don't forget SHM-CD (which is compatible)

All those you listed are compatible with a regular CD player.
The only ones that would not be compatible with your CDP are SACD and DVD-A (DVD-Audio).
XRCD is a process (check xrcd.com though JVC USA sold its ops to a retailer 2yrs ago). It will be fine on any CDP.

HDCD requires a decoder chip I believe (or software decoding within the playback software) to get to the HDCD dithering algo and filters, though I expect HDCDs are playable on your CDP anyway.