I'd say spend as much on the turntable and tonearm as you possibly can (assuming that price = value, which is not always the case!) and worry slightly less about the cart...
As an aside, years ago Linn proposed total system "spend" in the form of a symbolic pyramid with the turntable appearing as the base/foundation of the pyramid. The width of each level represented the scale of the "spend" as thus -
......L/S
...Amplifier
..Phono stage
Turntable/arm/cart
This could be further broken down into -
....Cart
.Tone-arm
Turn---table
The T/T being the most "fundamental" element...
Later someone came up with the "Barnett Formula" (context of "Barnett" being slang for a seriously large head of hair). This was an inverted pyramid with the loudspeakers emphasized at the top.
IMO both are correct to a large extent because you should also buy the best loudspeakers & amplification you can afford in order to do the source justice ;^)
Hell, just sell the Ferrari and buy a mega-system! ;^) :D
As an aside, years ago Linn proposed total system "spend" in the form of a symbolic pyramid with the turntable appearing as the base/foundation of the pyramid. The width of each level represented the scale of the "spend" as thus -
......L/S
...Amplifier
..Phono stage
Turntable/arm/cart
This could be further broken down into -
....Cart
.Tone-arm
Turn---table
The T/T being the most "fundamental" element...
Later someone came up with the "Barnett Formula" (context of "Barnett" being slang for a seriously large head of hair). This was an inverted pyramid with the loudspeakers emphasized at the top.
IMO both are correct to a large extent because you should also buy the best loudspeakers & amplification you can afford in order to do the source justice ;^)
Hell, just sell the Ferrari and buy a mega-system! ;^) :D