A radio-frequency (RF) sampling transmitter (e.g., of the type that may be used in 5G wireless base stations) includes a complex baseband digital-to-analog converter (DAC) response compensator that operates on a complex baseband signal at a sampling rate lower than the sampling rate of an RF sampling DAC in the RF sampling transmitter. The DAC response compensator flattens the sample-and-hold response of the RF sampling DAC only in the passband of interest, addressing the problem of a sinc response introduced by the sample-and-hold operation of the RF sampling DAC and avoiding the architectural complexity and high power consumption of an inverse sinc filter that operates on the signal at a point in the signal chain after it has already been up-converted to an RF passband.