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Transformers: Soundwave

The first Decepticon in brick form, and honestly the best one yet.

Brick Rated Score

4.6/5

Set 10358 · 2025

Pieces1,505

Minifigsn/a

Year2025

Set number10358

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The verdict

This is the one that finally made me a Transformers convert, and I was pretty lukewarm on the theme before.

Soundwave transforms from robot to Walkman without you pulling him apart, there is a real sound brick in his waist, and the Laserbeak and Ravage cassettes pop out and transform too. If you grew up on the G1 cartoon, or you just love a set that actually does something, this one is going to make you grin. The price stings and the play button is a sticker, but the engineering earns it.

Best for: G1 cartoon kids who want a display piece that actually plays

The full review

What it is

Soundwave is the third LEGO® set in the grown-up Transformers line, after Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, and it's the first time a Decepticon has shown up. That alone made it a big deal for a lot of people, but the reason this set matters is what it actually does. He stands over 13 inches tall in robot mode, all posable joints and that flat blue chest, and then he folds down into a classic cassette player without you having to take a single piece off. That last part is the trick that older Transformers sets never quite pulled off, and here it just works. The feet tuck into the legs, the legs twist around to become the sides of the deck, the head rotates back into a hidden compartment, and suddenly you're holding a Walkman. It's genuinely satisfying every single time.

The catch

Then there's the sound brick, which is the thing everyone talks about and for good reason. It lives in his waist, and when you press play you get one of a whole bank of random sounds: lines lifted straight from the animated series, the theme tune, and freshly recorded dialogue. It turns a display piece into something you keep picking up. The cassettes are the other bit of magic. Laserbeak and Ravage build as little tape cassettes that slot into Soundwave's chest, eject on command, and then fold out into their own transforming creatures. That's three transformations in one box, which is a lot of clever packed into 1,505 pieces. I'll be straight with you about the money, though. At $189.99 this is not a part-count bargain, and if you line it up against other sets at that price you're paying a premium for the electronics and the engineering rather than sheer brick volume. That's the honest trade. The other nitpicks are small but real: the play button is a sticker, so heavy use will scuff it over time, and the two buttons on his waist sit close enough together that you'll press the wrong one now and then.

Who it's for

So who's this really for? If the G1 cartoon was part of your childhood, or you just love a set with real play built in, grab it without much hand-wringing, because the reviewers who usually hedge are near-unanimous that this is the best LEGO Transformer to date. If you build purely for the building, for clever new techniques and hours at the table, know going in that the transformation is less complex than some Transformers sets and a lot of the internals are fairly traditional Technic joinery. And if you only judge sets by pieces-per-dollar, this one won't top your spreadsheet. For everyone else, this won me over completely, and that's not something I say about every licensed set.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build runs across 12 numbered bags and it's paced beautifully. You start with the two cassettes, Ravage and Laserbeak, which is a smart way to get an early win before the main event. From there you build Soundwave up in sections, and much of it feels reassuringly traditional, with the Technic parts doing the work at the joints so he can actually hold a pose. The cassette bay in the chest is the fussy, satisfying heart of it, all engineered so the tapes seat and eject cleanly, and the transformation mechanics get worked in as you go rather than bolted on at the end. It's a feature-packed model that never feels like a chore.

On the parts front there's more here than you'd guess. The cassette holder uses a new 8x5x1 window component, and Soundwave's head reuses the 2x2 curved wedge slopes first made for 10302 Optimus Prime, this time with three in metallic silver. My favorite little detail is that the set gives you alternative trans-red and trans-yellow 1x1 slopes for the eyes, so you can match either the original toy or the cartoon version depending on which Soundwave lives in your memory. Add the sound brick itself, which is a genuinely uncommon element, and the printed detailing, and you've got a parts mix that's more about smart specialty pieces than a huge haul of everyday bricks. That's the value story in a nutshell: you're paying for engineering and electronics, not weight.

Fun facts

01Soundwave is the first Decepticon LEGO has ever made in this Transformers line, arriving after the Autobots Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.
02There's a real sound brick tucked into his waist that plays lines from the G1 animated series, the theme tune, and newly recorded audio.
03The set includes alternative trans-red and trans-yellow 1x1 slope eyes so you can build either the original toy's look or the cartoon's look.
04His head reuses the 2x2 curved wedge slopes designed for 10302 Optimus Prime, but this time three of them come in metallic silver.