Unexpected tweak

This blew me away. I bought a VPI HW19jr TT here a few months ago. It came with a Audioquest tonearm cable. Problem was it was a straight DIN design, and the TT could have used a 90 degree angled DIN. Well, I was moving cables around and fiddling the way we do. And I broke a solder joint on my tonearm cable. It was obvious because of the hum and loss of signal to my right channel. I got out my tools and tore apart the cable. At the solder joint, the manufacture was using what could only be described as a plastic honeycomb to insulate the terminations. I re-soldered the joint and decided that since I could not reuse the plastic honeycomb, I would instead use some RTV silicone to insulate the connection.
WOW, Huge difference. Every note sounds cleaner and clearer. I have to believe that the OEM insulator was not quite correct. There must have been leakage of the signal transfer and the RTV took care of all of that mess.
Has anyone here built cables and found this to ring a bell?