Shawn, it's unfortunate that you had that experience, and hopefully it was something that happened after it left Axiom, since an item that expensive should be checked at the factory for being operational.
Be that as it may, your 5500 and 5508 combo should serve you very well. The amplifier in the 5500 is essentially identical to that in the 5008 receiver(with the addition of XLR inputs, of course), and the math is roughly 5508+5500~5008.
I didn't quite follow how you plan to use the 5508 with the TV speakers. The 5508 of course doesn't power speakers, so are you speaking of some separately powered TV speakers?
