Table,cartridge,phono...where to put most of my money?

OP… “So if I’m reading correctly the general concensus is cartridges are priority one followed by phono amp then table?”

That’s fairly safe provided the turntable and arm are not too out of class. One of my biggest upgrades was my table and arm from a ~1981ish AR to a VPI.

They need to be in the same class.. so putting a $10K cartridge on a $5K table can make amazing sound… just not putting a $10K cartridge on an inexpensive Rega. so as long as you have a decent tt and arm, then you can get a lot of mileage out of a great cartridge and phonostage.

@missioncoonery, I see nobody has directly answered your question.

Spend most of your budget on the table. Then buy a good arm and lastly the cartridge.

Why so much money on the table?  OK consider this: lets find hypothetically a vinyl record with a 10000Hz sine wave and you pop this on the turntable and give it a spin.   At 10KHz the stylus has to change direction 20000 times!  Easy Peasey.

Now play some music with drums, piano and bass and try and imagine the antics the stylus has to perform to transduce this torture test. Any play in the bearing will mean important music info lost.

Likewise with the arm, any play anywhere and more damage done. The cartridge, even a fairly modest one mounted on a great table with a great arm will now perform to it's optimum.

Perhaps apportion your budget as follows:

Table 60%,  Arm 30% and Cartridge 10%

Also do not have the table set up in or near a room corner, that's where bass hangs out. Play repetitive bass beats and walk around your room where you have the components and find a quiet spot and position the table there. Remember the table needs an isolation shelf or some means of reducing vibration.

Once you have decent sound which you now should have you can then hunt for a better cartridge knowing you will enjoy it performing as intended.

@missioncoonery I’m paraphrasing but when you claimed that vinyl didn’t live up to your expectations, then I’m wondering just how or why you weren’t happy with the sound of your vinyl rig? Did it sound muted, was it noisy, etc… As far as the Linn or the VPI, those are very fine tables with respectable tonearms. So I’m thinking the phono amp and/or the cartridge and if I were in need of buying a phono amp, I’d look for a used one. However more than anything, playing records should be fun and enjoyable, well at least for me. 
What I did was buy a used ASR Mini Basis MK II phono amp when I bought my ASR Emitter II Exclusive amplifier. The Mini Basis is their entry level phono amp however it is a very good amplifier for the money. After that, I found a Thorens TD 160 MK 1 turntable in excellent working condition and began modifying it. I decided to make it into a designated mono table so I installed an Audio Technica 33 Mono MC cartridge. I was listening to mono remastered Jazz records last night and it sounds like I would expect it to. Given that, I listen to my digital front end about 85% of the time and vinyl the other 15%. Maybe when I’m finished with my upgrades and modifications, then I’ll listen to vinyl more often but for me, digital offers better fidelity and there are about zero new classical recordings being offered in any other format than from compact discs or digital downloads. But vinyl can be fun at times so that is solely why I keep my records, turntable and phono amp.

I agree,I see lp playback as hopefully enjoyable but will never replace my digital......just something fun.

Missioncoonery  

With all due respect to you, you are comparing your digital sound quality history that your ears have become accustomed to for decades, to the analog quality of a $5k - $6k analog rig.  Quite frankly, given the inherent obstacles of old technology analog turntable playback, overcoming those obstacles to the extent of duplicating the competitive digital sound quality that is engrained in your brain (ie, no cracks, no pops, no ticks, etc etc, together with the so called, "warmer" sound of vinyl) COULD easily cost well into the $20k - $35k range for a well matched turntable, tonearm, cartridge combination, and add another $5k minimum for a decent phono stage preamp.  IMO, if you are a demanding and astute listener, $6k will NEVER get you analog sound quality that even remotely compares to great digital.  For me, after listening to top tier digital audio reproduction for many decades through some relatively high end gear, it is rare that I run across budget analog systems that that even begin to approach the sound of high end digital.  

AND ONE LAST THING, I too, desperately desire in my advancing age to rekindle the "sexy analog experience", but quite frankly, am not so confident I want to invest $30k plus into an analog rig, on the mere hope, that it JUST MIGHT be competitive with my perceived sound quality of the digital rig.  It is the sound experience of the music that is most important to music lovers.  And if we are already getting nearly the best audio experience possible, then it begs the question as to why we would risk big dollars in old technology that has "again become quite the fad".  (My favorite record store owner (a mom & pops record store) just leased a 2024 BMW X7!!!)