You can attempt to disregard the "everything matters" argument but it doesn't make it less pertinent, and trying to use price as the only criteria
may not be the best way forward when asking "which is more important" (which is not too far removed from "which is better") question, is probably not the question to ask in the first place. You see experienced and knowledgeable people above give council while trying to work around the inevitable truth that every piece or interactions between pieces in the signal path is a potential bottleneck. I just watched a video with VPI's Harry and Matt Weisfeld, and they both had remarked about how good a $50 Audio-Technica cartridge (they didn't say which one, so I would say it's the AT95E) sounded on their $20k HW-40 table; to be clear, they didn't advise that and recommended higher quality carts, but the point was made that the associated equipment allowed a modest cartridge to shine regardless of the price, because everything else stayed out of the way.
may not be the best way forward when asking "which is more important" (which is not too far removed from "which is better") question, is probably not the question to ask in the first place. You see experienced and knowledgeable people above give council while trying to work around the inevitable truth that every piece or interactions between pieces in the signal path is a potential bottleneck. I just watched a video with VPI's Harry and Matt Weisfeld, and they both had remarked about how good a $50 Audio-Technica cartridge (they didn't say which one, so I would say it's the AT95E) sounded on their $20k HW-40 table; to be clear, they didn't advise that and recommended higher quality carts, but the point was made that the associated equipment allowed a modest cartridge to shine regardless of the price, because everything else stayed out of the way.