HT receiver
Gary,
Nice speakers.
Any mid-fi receiver in the $1k price range from Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, etc. should have plenty of power for your 8 ohm Axiom speakers. I would save a little money on the receiver and put it towards an HD source like HD-DVD or BluRay. An HD source will always look better than an SD source with a good scaler.
Also check out the seperates from Emotiva in your budget. They will be releasing new pre-pros early next year and existing owners will get 40% off. The new models will have 4 HDMI inputs, auto setup, EQ, etc.