woodwojr wrote:

Having just listened to the samples you gave, I don't notice that the pronunciations are different. Are you referring to the difference in pitch?

~J

Am I imagining that きれい end is pronounced えい and 大学生 end is ええ？

I asked about this on lang-8, and some Japanese person said that he could not think of any word where えい would be pronounced anything other than ee.

I think it might be the English equivalent of a and uh. Slightly different pronunciations... Few people notice the difference.