I’m sorry to hear this sad news. I never met Jim as I live in the UK, but he was US distributor for Avantgarde when I bought my first pair and he kindly offered advice in setting up. He also published a list of 100 CDs that we should all have - well performed and well recorded music. I bought a few in my local store and when visiting the US at Tower Records, and more were found in my local library. I borrowed and replicated these on CD-Rs. I still play several of his recommended discs.
Decades later and reading his forum replies to members' questions he often advised on matters such as speaker cables and I recently switched to one of these recommendations.
Thanks Jim and rest in peace