That's why you buy two!
Tempted by the Earthrise because I feel it'll be G1 from the cartoons, but not sure. Might at least get the G1 Soundwave and cassettes.
Granted I don't know what it's like in the US, but I haven't seen a G1 reissue Soundwave on shelves here for months. Lately the only G1 reissue I've seen (if I see any, they seem to be criminally understocked) is Astrotrain.
If you wanted a modern Soundwave there was the one from WFC Siege. The alt mode is decidedly not G1 (it's a somewhat iffy looking spaceship of some form. Let's be realistic though, there's no way in 2020 they're releasing a wholly G1-compliant Soundwave with a microcassette recorder alt-mode outside of a collector's figure like those G1 reissues) but the robot mode is an excellent take on classic Soundwave. The cassettes you can get for him are a mixed bag (Laserbeak is great, Ravage sucks, and from what I've seen Rumble and Ratbat are both pretty good) but the cassettes are absolute
hell to find.
So far the War For Cybertron series has been very nice in terms of being highly G1-compliant. I get that some of Siege's Cybertronian alt-modes are going to put people off (I love, love,
love the pilot-episode-inspired 'tetra-jet' mode that Starscream and his seekers have, but I get that it's not for everyone.) but the robot modes for the most part look great.
Earthrise looks promising so far, but I do and don't like that there are so many Siege repeats. On the one hand it's gonna save me money not buying another Megatron or Starscream (the F-16 jet is tempting, but I hate the proportions on the robot mode) or Smokscreenor Astrotrain. But on the other hand I wish they had saved those slots for worthy other characters that could use the spotlight.
And they can have all my money for that Scorponok by year's end. Then I can finally have a display set up of Fortress Maximus vs Scorponok (fittingly as I am just finishing watching The Headmasters anime tonight)
I'm not sure if you've collected any Siege stuff, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Refrakor (Reflector. Thanks trademark issues!) Reconnaissance 3-Pack. The cartoon purist will probably scoff at the fact tha the 3 Reflector bots contained therein aren't all identically colored like the cartoon (rather they are accurate to the original toy with two in slightly different purples and one red one) but they come with all sorts of extra doodads to make the bots individually unique and make for a really sweet looking combined camera mode. You could also track down 3x basic refaktors but they're a bit hard to find and their camera mode is a little bland (and honestly nobody is using their silly spaceship/weapons platform singular alt modes)
I know this wasn't asked for but all this talk has made me think about Siege and having seen the entirety of the line, I would rank my top 5 releases from it as:
5) Ultra Magnus (the price point is is a little steep, but it's true to the G1 figure in that it's an armored up white Optimus Prime with a cartoon-accurate look once you have all the external pieces on. And it makes him look like a tough as hell warrior type that dwarfs a lot of other bots)
4) Soundwave (the alt mode sucks and there are some fiddly bits in his transformation, mostly the engine nacelles along his robot back and the one fiddly shoulder joint, but he looks perfectly Soundwave-ish in robot mode and comes with a working spring-loaded cassette door that can fit a pair of the Siege cassettes inside. There's also notches for Laserbeak to perch on his forearm, but that seems like it almost never works because of manufacturing tolerences on the laserbeak figures)
3) Omega Supreme (ungodly expensive and kind of basic for how much he costs, but it's a perfect robot, a very good base mode, and it's hard to argue with the scope and scale standing over most other bots.)
2) Springer (apparently hell to find and has some issues with fiddly transformations and an excess of hinged joints and segments to accommodate both alt modes, but all the modes work well and as a robot he's a near perfect G1 representation, plus he gets a pair of guns and a pair of badass swords.
1) Jetfire (You want a cartoon-accurate Skyfire? He does that. Right down to the rotating faction symbol on his chest based on his debut episode. You want a G1 toy accurate I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-A-Macross-Valkyrie bot? Stick the armor pieces on and you've got that too. The transformation isn' perfect and though I understand the necessity I never like having so many ratcheting joints, but it's hard to argue with the results and the versatility.
I'd be hard pressed to find something in Siege that I absolutely hated. Even one of the bad ones, Apeface has a really great looking robot and retains his Headmaster gimmick past the line that featured them to mildly offset he fact that he's a mess of hollows and hinges with a terrible jet mode.
That and goddamn Red Wing being a Target membership card exclusive, which means I can't bloody get one because I can't apply for a damn Red Card without a US mailing address and/or bank account. That's softened by the fact that I don't really need another Seeker, but it just looked so sexy in black/red/white