The transport is the equivalent of the table, arm & cartridge combined. They both spin a disk hopefully at an accurate speed, align a device to “ read” the disk, read it & send that information on its way. The phono preamp & the DAC are then sort of equivalent in that they take the signal they receive and make it useable to a pre amp or possibly a power amp itself.
Is the DAC the digital equivalent of a cartridge.
I'm thoroughly convinced that the closest thing to the source of the music/sound is most important component. I'm an analog vinyl guy, but am looking into digital, and was just wondering if DACs have the same influence on the sound because it's as close to the source as the cartridge is.