Help Requested: Splitting LFE for Bass Shakers

I currently have a working 5.1 setup and I'm trying to add bass shakers.
I picked up an extra amplifier (Dayton SA240) and 2 aura bass shakers.

My starting position:
I have the subwoofer connected to the Sub Pre-Out port in the receiver.

Working Intermediary position:
I took a y-cable (1 male / 2 female) and connected it to the Sub Pre-Out port in the receiver. I connected the subwoofer's cable to the y-cable. (Retested using the receiver's test tones and bass is working.)

Non-Working current position:
I used another RCA cable to connect the y-cable to the Left channel Low Level Input of my extra amplifier
I used an RCA / speaker wire cable from radio shack (productId: 2102959) to connect the Left channel Low Level Output to one of the bass shakers.

- Observations -
When I play the subwoofer test tone, the bass shaker does not work.
In addition, the subwoofer does not work.
If I simply disconnect the speaker wire from the bass shaker, the subwoofer starts working again.
If I touch the speaker wire to the poles on the bass shaker, the subwoofer stops working again.
If I tap on the bass shaker, sound comes out of the subwoofer.

- Other tests that I've tried -
I tried using the right channel of the extra amplifer, but observe the same problems.
I have two bass shakers, so I tried the second one. I observe the same problems.

I'm reading a lot and I freely admit that I am learning a lot every time I do something, so I could have made an easy mistake. Any help is appreciated!

Graceace

Richard -

First of all, thanks for your response.

I tried your suggestion. I played a CD (Metallica's latest) first with just the subwoofer (worked great).

Then I tried the subwoofer and the bass shaker together (no sound or vibration from either again).

Then I connected the extra amplifier / bass shaker directly to the sub pre-out of the main receiver (removing the y cable and the subwoofer). No sound or vibration from the bass shaker.

What I am having a hard time understanding is why connecting the bass shaker (even just touching the poles) would make the main sub stop working.

Soho54 -- Thanks for your response also.

I tried this with 2 different bass shakers (same result).

After your post, I also tried with an old speaker that I had lying around (admittedly, I'm not sure if this speaker is capable of playing anything from the LFE channel). I saw the same results. (I tried both with and without the subwoofer connected).

The thing that is most confusing to me about this puzzle is why connecting an additional speaker would cause the main sub to stop playing sound.

My best guess is that there is something wrong with the RCA to speaker wire that I got from radio shack (productId: 2102959) but I really don't understand why that would cause an issue with the main subwoofer.

Soho54 --

I tried using the radio shack wire to go from the receiver (rca output) to the high level input of the amp (speaker wire input) and regular speaker wire to go from the high level output of the amp to the bass shaker. Is the the setup that you are suggesting? Maybe I'm confused but I thought that the LFE should go into low level input.

In any case, here are the results:
Tested with the CD but no noise / vibration.
I also noticed that the amp isn't triggered on if I am using auto-on.

Soho 54 --

I tried your suggestion after work today (work seems to have the unfortunate habit of getting in the way of my entertainment). I'm happy to say that your suggestion worked! After I got the first bass shaker working, I connected the second bass shaker in series. Those things really move; I'm excited to get them on my couch.

I'm still not really sure what the outputs on the front of the amp are for. I (naturally?) thought that the low level output jacks would be the right place for the speakers when I was using the low level input jacks. What are these for? I also have no idea why plugging something into these speakers would stop the main sub from working.

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As a reference to anyone else who might be reading this to troubleshoot later, my latest working configuration is:

receiver sub pre-out -- Y-splitter (1 male/2 female)

Y-splitter(output 1) -- -- subwoofer

Y-splitter(output 2) -- -- Y-splitter (1 female / 2 male) -- low level input on the amplifier (left and right)

pos/red wire in back of the amp -- -- positive pole bass shaker 1
neg/black wire in back of the amp -- -- negative pole bass shaker 2
negative pole bass shaker 1 -- -- positive pole bass shaker 2

graceace