I know that /ɑː/ is [*open back unrounded vowel*][1] and is found a lot in British English. It is the vowel in *bath, father, bar, car* etc in British English. In American English, this vowel is found in *bar, father, car* (but not *bath*!). 

But when I listen to the audio given in [Wikipedia][1], [IPA chart website][2] and [this IPA chart website][3], I feel that pronouncing the vowel exactly like /ɑː/ would sound stilted. 

I listened to many British people when pronouncing this vowel and they do not sound like this at all to me (non-native). If I heard them correctly, they were pronouncing /ɑː/ as not [ɑː] but something more relaxed or at least not that back and long as the audios in the above websites suggest.

**Bath:** [Cambridge Dictionary][4], [Lexico powered by Oxford][5]: the word "bath" is pronounced not with [ɑː] but something more relaxed than [ɑː]. I tried to pronounce it with [ɑː] but it sounds unnatural. 

**Question:** Do British people usually pronounce /ɑː/ as [ɑː] or relaxed and shorter than [ɑː]? Am I hearing them correctly?



  [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel
  [2]: https://www.ipachart.com/
  [3]: https://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-sounds/ipa-chart-with-sounds/
  [4]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bath
  [5]: https://www.lexico.com/definition/bath