I think leading '\x00's reflect in shorter addresses; otherwise, you can't see addresses beginning with "1R...", "1S...", "1T..." and so on; second symbol further than "Q" is only possible in hashes with leading 'x00's
It is leading zero bytes, keep that in mind. They couldn't affect the leading result character, if it were a straight conversion, right? Somewhat like writing 007345349 in decimal, it doesn't matter how many zeroes there are in front. But yes, I am pretty sure:
Yes, you are right. I confused leading hex 'x0' with leading byte 'x00'.