s. When the DAS was designed there were no "short" metal risers that were ILF compatible. Most of the risers Bob was warfing were in the 20" range.
AND there were very very few "hunting weight" ILf limbs. Most were in the low 40's on the 23/24 inch risers. {Hoyt had made some super shorts for a short lived camoed hunting version of the gold medalist---The Talon. but they were basic maple/glass limbs. PSE imported a few heavy weight "hunting" limbs (50-65# that I have seen) for their camoed ILF bow called the Jackal, it was a 23/34 inch riser camoed version of their ILF target bow. Occasionally you could find an "off spec" set of hoyt or W&W OLY/FITA limbs marked 50#@28 but they were few and far between }
So for WARF purposes we were stuck with bows that would pretty much max out at maybe 50# @ 28"
David saw a need for a shorter HUNTING bow that could use modern FITA tech limbs and reliably give 50#+ draw weights. Initially he was designing for ILF fittings and a shorter riser with a number of improvements, Alloy strength, precision machined, adjustable weight/balance etc etc.
He worked with half a dozen of so guys who were all archers and bowhunters--they were all also early members on the site here in its original incarnation. They consulted with him on features design etc etc and also tested the initial protoypes. One of them (I have forgotten which one) suggested that he take a look at the thumb-screw locator screw used in the earlier generation Hoyt TD's (before Earl created the "ILF" for his target bows) The early 16" Hoyt PM/TD Hunter might have served as an inspiration however David did not acquire one untill well after the DAS Kinetic was in production. David looked at that system and re-worked it and its pocket to enable it to serve as more than just locator screw.
As Sam mentioned, that is one of the key differences between the simple Hoyt TD locator thumb screw and the the DAS "capture" (or "caption") screw.
In addition David spent a lot of time and money to make a bow as silent as possible. He worked with a, well-known-to-the-site, target archer and bowhunter who was also a former "stealth" acoustical tech specialist. He had worked on the US Navy stealth submarine fleet, and was able to help David adapt a version of the rubber "skin" of our hunter killer subs as the sound and vibration-killing mounting-pads under the limb-butts.
The project advisors got the first half dozen bows as Beta-model DAS Kinetics. I jumped on the DAS band wagon at about that point, just as it was heading down the road--Think goodness!!! I managed to get one of the next half dozen as the first actual production run. While I have a bunch of bows including some ver very nice ones----My DAS is my "cold dead hands" bow.
Yes an ILF bow can be made deadly quiet, if you work at it and have the knowledge and materials. Most of us have done it on one bow or another.
The DAS was designed to be that way out of the box------if they were noisy it was a matter of set-up, mistuning, poor limb fit, poor selection and mounting of accessories. and most commonly simply using arrows too light in order to squeeze out the last few possible FPS in the Need For Speed race.
A lot has changed since the DAS Kenetic was designed and produced. After Bob Gordon broke the trail with his WARF bows and David took it the next step with the DAS Kenetic others recognized the value of the FITA Tech limbs mounted on shorter risers. Other perceptive and forward looking bow makers began making short risered with ILF fittings, some even produced custom versions of their own high performance limbs in ILF configuration. Soon the "industrial" mfgs geared up to produce "hunting weight" ILf limbs in addition to their top-of-the line FITA limbs. Today we have a wide range of ILF and DAS compatable risers-----including some very high grade ones from
custom bowmakers. We also have a range of risers and limbs for the budget conscious archer
But it all starts with Bob Gordon and David Sosa and a few of the founding members of this Trad Talk site