Im not familiar with your partucular Cambridge Audio player but maybe this will help. Due to the differences in the size of the pits or burned surface of DVDs and CDs, they require the reading laser to send a light beam of different wavelengths to read the information on each type of disc.
To accomplish this, a DVD player is equipped with one of two things: A laser that has the ability change its focusing accurately based on DVD or CD detection or, more commonly, a DVD player will have two lasers, one for reading DVDs and one for reading CDs. This is often referred to a Twin-Laser Assembly as is usually listed in the spec sheet for DVD players that have them.
To accomplish this, a DVD player is equipped with one of two things: A laser that has the ability change its focusing accurately based on DVD or CD detection or, more commonly, a DVD player will have two lasers, one for reading DVDs and one for reading CDs. This is often referred to a Twin-Laser Assembly as is usually listed in the spec sheet for DVD players that have them.