Relative Importance of Analog Components

I look at the cart and preamp as being equal and most important, and the arm and table as the tool that makes the cart work. 

Dear @dogberry  :  TRansducers always are the more important links in the audio system because with out transducers we can't listen MUSIC.

Now and taking in count that today almost no one owns only one cartridge then I think that the primary system link in alogue is the Phono Stage because is this unit the one that perhaps has the hardest work with the audio cartridge signal due that needs amplify that tiny lvelsignal over 10k times and needs to do it with very low noise and with very low developed distortions along to has a " perfect " inverse RIAA eq. that's an equalization f around 40dbs ! ! . The unit needs too all the facilities to handled any LOMC or MM/MI cartridges: it has to be universal and most be an active high gain unit with no SUT ( no pun intented. ). The Phono Stage main target most be to preserve the extremely sensible and tyny level cartridge recorded signal and I mean it: Preserve its quality. Extreme hard task for say the least.

Following with the same way of thinking the second link is the tonearm that has to be one that " accepts " cartridges with different compliance/weigth and stays inside the ideal resonance frequency.

After those links comes the cartridge where " ironically " the other two links operate as cartridge slaves.

Yes, TT is way important too but according with my way of thinking is not more important, critical yes but today TTs are really good.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

I can’t rank them as the weakest link would glare IMO.  Great cartridge is huge but has to have a great arm to perform at its best.  Then the phono stage has to be up to par with the arm/cart.   
 

Until I upgraded my tonearm to a basis vector 4 I thought the same thing as Russ above.  But man what a difference it made to my presentation it was jaw dropping compared to other upgrades I have made.  After all the arm just gives the cartridge a ride, right?   Man is that ever an understatement.   
 

Thank you to all for the thoughts so far. What I was getting at (or trying to do so) was which of the four components has the most effect on final sound, which comes next and so on. It's obvious that if there is a bottleneck in sound quality ('the weakest link') then that must be addressed. But to me, a TT or a tonearm has a relatively subtle effect compared to a cartridge or a phono stage. Likewise, I can certainly hear changes when I swap phono stages, but I hear bigger changes when I swap cartridges. And what's the point of this? - very little! Maybe I'm simply justifying my choices, as I realise my expenditure on the four items has followed my ranking above!