playing partial sounds

I want to be able to play a piece of a dsound buffer, either starting play somewhere after the beginning, stopping play somewhere before the end, or both. I can do this using get/setposition() in combination with play() and stop(), or, it seems, I can do this using the direct sound notifications interface in combination with createevent(). I''m wondering what are the pros and cons of each approach, and are there other approaches. thanks.