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.  

DAC is digital phono preamp and cartridge is the transport.

@jjss49 So it is like a car? 😎

The cartridge is literally a generator (motor).

The DAC is more like a graph paper to electrical plotting. And the ADC like the signal to the graph paper.

@czar2000 

DAC is digital phono preamp and cartridge is the transport.

The DAC is probably more like the cartridge.
The phone stage is like the buffer at teh end of the DAC which outputs the signal.
And the RIAA is not in the ADC at all.

The transport would be like the TT itself, and if one has a streamer or a file based system,, then there is no transport.

I think dac to cartridge is a pretty good analogy. Both make the last most meaningful conversion between information types (digital to analog; groove to analog electrical). Not a perfect analogy, but pretty darn good imo

the cartridge I suppose has a broader scope, converting a mechanical info source to electrical, whereas the dac just converts one form of electrical info to another, but in either case the last meaningful conversion

(yes I know the very last is electrical to sound waves by the speaker, haha)

a dac is absolutely not like a cartridge. a cartridge reads media, like a transport or server, a phono stage then interprets and amplifies, exactly like a dac.

you don’t hook your cartridge directly to your preamp, and your server and transport are not hooked directly to your preamp either.

hello?