Was your first cartridge relatively expensive?

one thing nobody's mentioned yet: in terms of sound the table is most important, followed by the arm, followed by the cartridge;
so you should spend as much of your budget as possible on the first two - you'll have to replace cartridges regularly anyway down the road (conventional wisdom is that they last about 1500 hours) and you can move up cartridge-wise at those points

and Raul is right, any decent TT dealer will set things up for you for no extra charge when you buy a cartridge. further, dealers will give you generous credit for trading in your used cartridge. I've never messed with my TT a bit, but I sure enjoy it!

I was told by my dealer and others that the list of importance goes. 1.cartridge 2.phono stage 3.arm 4.table

I have recently upgraded from an entry level setup to something that is far more expensive, and while the new rig sounds better, the big jump is going from only having digital to haveing an entry level turntable.

Ejlif, no offense, but I'd find another dealer. I've been playing records for a lot longer than 50 years and the table itself is by far the most important element. People thought Ivor Tiefenbrun (Linn Sondek) was crazy when he propounded this idea in the 70s. He wasn't.

First cartridge after 20 years was a Grado Green @ $60. It ran on an old Sansui table and sounded great. I upgraded modestly to a NAD533 and now use a Denon DL-110 that I got used for $85. Analog doesn't have to cost $$$. For the small ammount of money I am spending I am getting much more enjoyment from my table than from CD ... and now I building a Hagerman Bugle phono pre - never thought I would be doing that! And this is much much fun.

Howie, from what you've described elsewhere about your objectives, I'd encourage you to consider a first cartridge in the $500-$900 price range. Below that, I don't think you'll get a good sense of what your vinyl playback can sound like in your system. And above that an accident will be a really painful experience. As others have pointed out already, the cartridge will wear out and have to be replaced at some point and you can always upgrade at that point (or before).

There is definitely a learning curve with vinyl playback, both as to set up and as to handling the LPs and the hardware. Cartridges are very robust critters, but most of us have destroyed a cantilever by accident somewhere along the line.

In the price range I've suggested there are a number of cartridges that will perform very well, the choice depending on what tonearm you end up getting and with due consideration to your listening priorities.

If budget becomes an issue, I would definitely opt for spending even less on a cartridge in order to spend more on the phono stage. A big mistake many people make is to spend too little on the phono stage. In my experience, the phono stage is critical to a good vinyl front end.
.