Develop a hierarchy for phono playback

@billstevenson 

  I burst out laughing when I read your first sentence “ I hope that we can build a consensus…”

I like your posts and think that you are a thoughtful listener.  However the subjectivity inherent to Audio appreciation mitigates against consensus building.

  IMO the best we can hope for on any topic are a couple of valid viewpoints that are cogently supported.  I have found personally that some great members here have viewpoints that just don’t conform to my reality although I respect the reasoning that goes into shaping their judgements.

  Meanwhile, back to phono stages…

I would like everyone to go back and carefully re-read ghdprentice's post.  I think his logic is excellent and could form the basis for consensus.  Thoughts?

The top of the list may need to be the record itself. Here there are 4 turntables set up from different manufacturers. A crappy record/recording sounds crappy on all 4. 
 

All leads back to the G.I.G.O. adage. 

In order of importance... 4/3/6/1/5 Phono to Preamp/2 Turntable to Phono Input/7. My reasoning for placing the phono preamp ahead of the cartridge is that too many systems never attain the potential of the cartridge due to a subpar phono stage.

I would say the better the cartridge, the more important the phono stage. So if you have 2000 dollars don't spend half of it on the phono stage. If you have 10, yes, absolutely. @ghdprentice is up there with his system, way across the 10K per component line, and he is always very thoughtful