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I've been reading about the sounds of Japanese and always thought the あ's highest point is shown as in this diagram:
Which I learned narrowly can be transcribed like [ɑ̞] (the diagram is taken from here, which my book also shows it as)
But reading more, I stumble upon for example from the Japanese wikipedia this one:
Which one would be the most correct in most cases?
Both are correct, there is no set-in-stone answer as the difference in pronunciation is slight. As you said, the pronunciation depends on context.
