I recently bought a new home theatre system ( yay tax refunds). THe problem is, I can't get the Sub Woofer or the Center Speaker to work.
I tested them both in other speaker ports and they work. I tried every setting on teh damn thing and still cant get em to work so I am thinking it has to be something with my set up.
I am running the Cable, and DVD player into the VCR then the VCR out to TV ( by way of coax cable) then the VCR out to the home theater.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As often as possible, try to go straight from the source to the home theater input. You could be stripping some of your surround sound stuff by going through another device before hitting the receiver.

You're thinking "but I won't be able to record sound." Often cable devices have 2 outputs for this reason. Take the lower res output to the VCR.

i tried going direct from the digital cable box. same result.

Which box do you have?

cable - Scientific Atlanta 2100
Home Theater is Pioneer sx - 315

If I Google your pioneer model number, I come up with a thread saying that the subwoofer channel doesn't really work, fyi.

found the problem. the channels were fried. :(