What's more important: phono stage or amp

I suppose I chose phono preamp from two available choices because I believe that it is harder to deal with small signals and amplify them greatly than to deal with higher level signals which get boosted less. But it is all interrelated, so yes, its only as good as its weakest link

Always these decisions, decisions...they'll ruin the day. Try to go the simple way, buy a cheap MM cartridge, these can be used even with the worst Phono Stages with a satisfying result (lots of Audiophiles here like MM) and go for an amp which will drive your speakers with ease.

It's ALL important, system, system, system. Say it over and over again until these sort of questions simply go away.

But for someone who is trying to decide how best to allocate audio funds, just saying "system, system, system" isn't going to help that decision. Yes, synergy is huge, as I and others have posted many times.

I think Herman rephrased the OP's question nicely.

And so perhaps we should proceed from a perspective of "all other things being equal and understanding that it is ultimately synergy that matters most..."

In that spirit, I'd advise to focus on the phono, due to the difficulty of cleanly amplifying such a small signal from your turntable's cartridge. But pay particular attention to the cartridge-phono stage match, and the speaker-amp match. These are best thought of as pairs, since performance on each will depend greatly on what it is paired to.

Very good advice from Roscoeiii. You need to have a phono stage that is electrically compatible with the cart you have chosen and the same for the speaker-amp interface. Read the white paper on the two different paradigms of speaker design to see why this is so impt. BTW, its no accident that these two critical interfaces occur at the two transducer interfaces; i.e., where mechanical energy is converted to electrical energy and vic-versa.