Yeah, I get arginine, taurine, citrulline, and a few others separately in 500mg caps. The complete amino caps with <50mg of most AAs always seemed super underdosed, since even 1 serving of egg or whey protein has about 10x that amount. EAA powder plus caps for the few missing AAs ends up being a lot cheaper than taking 10+ of the complete amino caps.
Heavily hydrolyzed whey protein isolate is I guess next best thing to a complete free-form amino supplement, but I have a hard time finding domestic (U.S.) whey protein isolate that's actually undergone thorough hydrolysis and doesn't have fillers/flavoring.
So you are taking 12 amino acid supplements separately (there are 21 amino acids) on top of the NOW EAA? Whatever aminos you are not taking, the others will push each other out of balance. That is what I'm saying that the caps are balanced so you can just increase the dose even more without worrying about things getting out of ratio, and like I said you just open up and empty the capsules out into water its the same as pure powder if you really wanted to crank up the dosage. So every time you take a serving of NOW EAA, you need to take arginine, for example otherwise lysine will cancel out the arginine and this goes all for other aminos since they act on ratios. Seems easier just to take the aminos in good forms that are balanced than take 12+ different capsules a day along with a big jug of powder with you.
Also, we already know that you don't need that much of histidine or cysteine to be effective (some people respond less than 100mgs).
I agree though that whey or egg white protein powder can work too, but it requires an extra step since your body needs to digest and break the protein down first and then absorb the aminos. If your digestion and metabolism are shit you won't be getting much of it (let alone the amino forms in whey aren't in HCL form, which are superior in absorption).
Edit: and if you find and a full spectrum amino supplement in powder form, let me know as I would be interested and think we could add it electrolytes protocol as it would simplify things much easier (that is why I like the caps now)