No problem Calcifar, glad it's helped you out
Is SP profile effectively the same as Cherry? I'm thinking of picking up an aluminum space bar from the current group buy, and was wondering about the compatibility of the Cherry profile with an SP set.
It's very close, especially the top rows. However the bottom two rows (and particularly the bottom row) of SP profile keys are noticeably more slanted back than Cherry keys. This has been a major complaint with their bottom row, and their spacebars are known to be "sharp" due to the high front edge. But yes as csimi mentioned, the spacebar will always have a convex top which differs from the other modifiers, so you can pretty much use any profile space bar with any set in most circumstances.
Oh one more question, which keycap variant does the Leopold fc700r have ?
I was told it is one of the few tenkeyless boards with cherry caps ?
Either I would need to buy a ducky and cherry keycaps to exchange those or go for the leopold ?
Am i understanding this right ?
The Leopold FC700R's key caps are Cherry
profile but they are not the same as original Cherry keys. While they probably have the closest match to the profile of original Cherry keys, they are made of thin PBT plastic as opposed to thick ABS plastic which is part of the allure of original Cherry keys. It's important to distinguish between "Cherry profile" and "original Cherry key caps".
I think it's a lot easier to understand with a picture. Here are some quick and dirty shots I took comparing an original Cherry key cap with a key cap from my brother's FC700R:
Cherry vs. Leopold:
Material - Thick ABS vs. Thin PBT
Printing - Doubleshot vs. Pad-Printed
Shape - Sharp corners vs. Rounded corners
This being said, the Leopold is a great board and they probably have the best stock key caps out of any board commonly available on the market right now. But I guess that's inconsequential if you're going to swap them out anyway. The only issue with the Leopold is that the space bar from most sets will be incompatible due to odd spacing of stabiliser mounts.