^^^^ my cd player has phono jacks on the back of it, two that are the same color, for the sub out. the sub has hook ups for bare speaker wire. I was just over at radio shack and bought a speaker cable with a phono to lug terminal and a y-adapter. The guy at radio shack said it would work and wouldn't you know it doesn't. I know the sub works. Please help, the first response that gets it to work gets points.

i may be reading this wrong...but it sounds like you're trying to power a sub with your head unit?????

Where is the amp in this situation? If you don't have an amp to power that sub... then you better head on down to your local Circuit City and make an appointment in their install dept.
-Chris b.

both the above posters are correct, im just going to elaborate a little.

the RCA (or phono) jacks on the back of the headunit are meant to provide signal to an external amplifier, idependant of the Cd player. The amplifyer then adds the "power" and is connected to the sub via speaker wire.

thanks for responding but the manual for my cd player showed a pic. of it hooking directly to the sub. But anyways right after i posted I went and bought an amp.

are you sure that it showed the head unit going directly to a sub... that's odd... maybe it was talking about a powered sub?

and what head unit is this?

my eclipse manual has directions for hooking an amp up

That was pretty humerous!