On a purely technical note here, stainless steels containing chromium will have chromium carbides dispersed throughout the steel matrix of the blade, and this changes how they sharpen and what tools you need.
The reason carbon steel sharpens so much more easily is that the iron carbides are tiny and evenly distributed, with the result that they are easy to abrade away (they are also softer than chromium carbides, but that isn't the point here). Not as abrasion resistant, so the edge will wear faster, but getting a nice edge is fairly easy, as noted.
When you have chromium present, depending on the steel composition and heat treat (and production methods) there are larger chromium carbide particles in the edge. These tend to be larger (AEB-L is known for the small size of the carbides, though, also "swedish razor steel" from various makers) and are harder than natural stone abrasives as a rule, and not that much softer than aluminum oxide. The result, of course, is that it takes more work to remove metal from hard stainless edges, and chromium containing alloys are notoriously "gummy" to machine -- meaning they leave persistent burrs. VERY persistent burrs, in fact.
Getting a good edge on a stainless knife make of high end steel and properly heat treated takes more work than any carbon steel of equivalent hardness, it's simply more resistant to abrasion by your stones. Once you get the hang of that, you will need to get the technique for removing burrs for that particular steel/knife/stone combination established, and then I suspect you will be quite happy.
Try your synthetics, or a combination of synthetic and natural stones -- probably something like 1k for actual sharpening, 3-5k for polishing the edge, and then whatever combination of high grit stones and strops gives you the type of edge you want. It is entirely possible that the knife will feel "sharper" if you don't got too high on the final grit, leaving a bit of "tooth" to the edge -- unlike carbon steel knives, the abrasion resistance of the chromium carbides will keep this "toothy" edge cutting longer.
AEB-L, H-34 (? -- I have a terrible memory) and "swedish razor steel" from various places all have small carbides and sharpen more like carbon steel than lower grade stainless with large carbides (CroMoVa's, etc). and will benefit more from high grit sharpening.
You will figure it out eventually.
Peter