Turntable versus tonearm versus cartridge: which is MOST important?

So that means sometimes we do then? Whew! What a relief!

Agreed, everything is important. Sound fidelity (like a chain) is only as good as it weakest component.

Nice try. Freebie rubber power cords are absolute crap. If I swap out my Moneoone Supernova for freebie rubber crap it is obvious. But it doesn't bring my whole system down to that level. It is worse, obviously worse, but still much better overall than "its weakest link."  

A system is the sum of its parts. The weakest link may be the smartest place to look for improvement. But it is not what determines system performance.    

The best table and tone arm has no chance against a marginal cartridge.

The opposite of what many of us have said. Based on experience. The best table and tone arm will make a marginal cartridge sound incredibly good. The best cartridge on a marginal table and arm will only let you hear very clearly all the faults that made them marginal in the first place.

Luthuania you say. Where Lex Luthor lives? ;)

Had the opportunity to directly compare it in my system to a Clearaudio Performance DC/Satisfy Carbon arm/Lyra Delos cartridge. Total cost around $7K.

The latter was better in most parameters especially with respect to dynamics, detail, resolution. Tonality/frequency balance was more natural with the vintage system (less upper frequency glare).

Chakster beat me to it but yeah, this is the Lyra. Also to a lesser extent the ClearAudio. I have heard CA rigs like this that were scarcely better than digital.   

This brings up another thing, that I have been saying for a long time, that analog and turntables in particular are so good you can get great sound from just about any of them. Even more so if instead of spend spend spend on flipping components you tweak tweak tweak what you already have.   

The entire reason you got the answers you did, from me anyway, is the question you asked. Ask a different question, get a different answer! You asked a hypothetical when maybe would have been better to ask something more specific.  

You could for example get a LOT closer to the "dynamics, detail, resolution" of the expensive rig WITHOUT sacrificing any of the vintage rigs  " Tonality/frequency balance" (which is its strength) with a few select tweaks. Put that table on a set of Townshend Pods, put some Synergistic PHT on the cartridge and arm (I recommend Green and Black) put Origin Live Cartridge Enabler and maybe their Mat on it, and trick it out with some fO.q tape, and I think you will be surprised. Hugely surprised. 

If the goal is cost-effective improvement without sacrificing any of the great qualities you already have this is the way to go.

In the end, the firing squad would be a kindness.

A mercy killing. https://youtu.be/H59iOnYAsY0?t=24

A state of the art $10K cartridge on a $500 table/arm or a good $500 cartridge on a $10K table/arm?

Now that I think about it, I actually have everything here to make almost this exact comparison: Origin Live Sovereign turntable with Origin Live Enterprise arm is very close to $10k. Koetsu Black Goldline is not a $10k cartridge but is a pretty darn good cartridge all the same.   

My vintage Technics SL1700 is also very close to your hypothetical $500 turntable. On it is a Stanton 681EEE which is quite a bit less than $500.   

So not exactly what you said, but pretty darn close. In this case it is no contest. I am not about to move the Koetsu to the Technics, not unless you get off your hypothetical you know what and make the trip here. But if you do and if we do I will bet you your next paycheck against mine you agree the table and arm make the biggest difference. 

And I hope you have a lot of OT on your next one because I sure have a lot of OT on mine!

Right. The comparisons have already been done. I’ve heard it myself, a couple times now. Moving the same Benz Ruby from a Graham arm to Origin Live Conqueror was a vastly bigger improvement than moving from the Glider to the Ruby. Have also moved the same arm/cartridge from one table to the next. Another huge difference.

What you need to keep in mind is any cartridge however good or expensive it may be, all it can do is wiggle back and forth and up and down. All that happens is the really good expensive ones let you hear more of the tiniest details as it wiggles around. But the cartridge itself, no matter how good, has no way of knowing what wiggles are signal coming from the groove and what wiggles are vibrations coming from the turntable and arm. It dutifully sends it all right along to the phono stage, the obscuring noise just as much as the music signal. 

Turntable and arm on the other hand, when they are the very best they produce vanishingly small detail-smearing vibrations. Because of this even a very inexpensive cartridge will play back so much more of what is in the groove you can hardly believe it. Whereas if you take a really expensive cartridge and mount it on a cheap arm so much of what you are hearing is noise from the arm and table you will wonder why you spent all that money in the first place. What a waste. It is even entirely possible you get to such a resolving cartridge and phono stage as to let you hear all the individual faults of the arm and table!

In other words your hunch is a bad one. The truth is closer to the opposite. Put your money into table and arm. Then cartridge.