Out of the entire set of SG Soundwave vs SG Blaster and all their new little dudes, Soundwave was the most surplus to my requirements.  I already had two Shattered Glass Soundwave toys, and one of them already sort of looked like this.  I mean, I understand why they're making him, what with this being a purposeful reuse of the Soundblaster/Twincast reissues, plus this being meant partially for Japan, where they don't have BotCon sets with SG Soundwave in them.  But, you know, personally, he wasn't a big draw.

BUT I STILL LOVE THIS GUY A BUNCH.  I'm not entirely sure why.  Maybe it's the attractive colors?  White with shock blue with hints of green just stands out.  Maybe it's that all of the crazy van deco is brought over as sticker detail.  Maybe it's that SG Soundwave's a fun-ass character.  He's got a headband  and says "righteous" all the time.

And so ultimately I suppose I welcome him.  I think BotCon's Soundwave will be my display version of the character since it remains my favorite; it's an SUV, so it doesn't transform into a simple box representing obsolete technology.  I do lose the interaction with the Recordicons, but I plan on keeping them all displayed outside his chest compartment anyway.  Chest storage is for tape guys you lost the weapons to.

In addition to the stickers which recreate Soundwave's van deco (and it still works, because us old timers remember plugging stickers all over our Walkmans as kids) there's also a sticker provided to give Soundwave his trademark headband.  You fold it over lengthwise, which is kind of tough to do precisely, and then there are perforated slots at strategic points along the headband so that you can loop the whole thing around his head and attach the ends over each other.  It works pretty well.

The only snafu is one localized to my toy.  Apparently some Chinese factory worker got some black paint on his fingers while painting the die cast feet and got his identifying marks all over Soundwave's inner thigh.  It's completely obscured in robot mode, but it was a fun surprise in cassette recorder mode.  I'll probably take some turpentine or something to it later.  Or, more likely, I'll never bother, because, as mentioned, you can't see it in robot mode, and that's how he's stored in the box once he gets put away in storage.