Is the DAC the digital equivalent of a cartridge.

Well the stylus reads the information in the groove, and the the DAC is supposed to read the digital 1 and 0.  How well an instrument does these tasks makes me think that's why they're so important in the chain.  

I was watching Mike the OCD hifi guy and he ways adamant about the DAC being the thing you build your system around.  If you're intro digital I would probably agree.  I really don't get why a lot of people are still touting the myth that speakers should be the the most important component thus the one that requires the biggest budget.  

Sorry, the phono stage does not decode anything, all it does is boost/amplify the small electric signal given to it by the cartridge. No way is a DAC anything like a phono stage, there’s no boosting or amplifying in a standalone DAC.

If you feed a DAC a good digital signal: streaming, cd, files, etc.. it should behave exactly like cartridge does as it is fed the grooves of a record, except digital signals don''t need to be boosted because they already line level.  

The phono stage just takes takes the information from the cartridge and amplifies it to line level; however, the DAC actually is in charge of decoding/converting/ reading the digital information that is fed into it.  The DAC does no amplifying to the signal as far as I know.  

I know all carts have a different sound, and the range of is crazy.  Carts have a huge effect on the sound, I just want to know if the DAC has as big an effect as a cart  

@mikelavigne I'm not an engineer, but an RiAA curve is nothing like converting digital info into analog signal.  From my understanding an RIAA curve adjusts the high and low frequencies of the signal boosted by the phono stage.  Phonostages are super important, but they are nowhere near what DACs do.