Harshness/Distortion Question - Newbie

Hi David, I am relatively new to vinyl as well, but in my experience there are a few things that could cause this.
1. misaligned cartridge, how did you set it up?
2. Dirty record.
3. dirty stylus.
3.5 static build up.
4. groove damage, not always visible to the naked eye.
5. inability of the phono stage to deal with the higher frequencies properly.
6. It is in the mix of the record.

I'm sure there are more, but these are a few of my experiences.
Try another record, see if you get the same problem. Check your stylus, with high magnification if possible, look for crud. Try the record on a friends system ( invaluable) if it does it there, then it is likely a problem with the record. Try cleaning the record.
This is the kind of stuff I think that drives a lot of people away from vinyl, but when you figure it out and conquer the problem, and your system sounds better, it is worth the trouble.

My guess is alignment/vtf/vta.

good luck.

The only time the harshness could be tied to vinyl,is a bad pressing,production problem,or bad job on the engineers part.Its not a characteristic of vinyl thats done right.

Vinyl is quite capable of reproducing the sound of harsh master tapes, some pressings are just harsh sounding, and some cartridges are quite capable of producing harsh sounds all on their own.

Hanaleimike's advice is solid. If tweaking cartridge setup doesn't work, then consider a new cartridge (I would go MC, myself) and/or a new phono preamp. But don't do that until you've learned cartridge setup basics.

Also besides the above mentioned,usually the cheaper the cartridge and stylus combination,the more harshness, distortion,plus other sonic problems.