It's the stylus...

After 60 (not a typo) years of fooling around with audio I have finally come to the absolute conclusion that the stylus is the most critical part of any vinyl setup. I don't think this is in any way a revolutionary thing to say. It's just that I haven't personally seen anyone say it before. This is by no means saying that all the other elements are not critically important as well but without a superb stylus all the rest is almost completely meaningless. 

This is the place where you cannot afford to spend less or budget. Over the years an astonishing number of different terrific performing cartridges have been produced but without a truly superb stylus they really don't give anything to an otherwise exceptional vinyl setup.

Only because people may ask I currently have in my collection 14 turntables, 4 phono stages, an unknown number of preamps and integrateds with phono sections, countless cartridges and lots more. After that, as to what's most important, I could make the argument for phono stage, cartridge, preamp in that order but I really don't have a dog in that hunt. The stylus is king, all else follows. I do absolutely realize that having something crappy anywhere down the line will throw everything off and make what I am saying .meaningless.