The pronunciation of the phoneme /v/ in Czech - accent variations

[Gusknust]

Hi, everyone. I’ve been studying Czech for a couple of years and would like help, especially from natives, with something that’s been puzzling me.
I know the letter “v” in Czech is generally pronounced pretty much as it is in English in initial position - maybe a bit softer in the middle of words like květ - but I can’t help but notice some speakers do pronounce ”v” as /b/, at times!
I had a Czech teacher from Brno and I never heard this in his speech, but I’ve been using the app Mondly to try and not forget my not so basic now Czech skills, and that’s when I noticed one of the people who’ve recorded the audios in Czech will say “By musíte jet blakem”, for example! Sometimes, she’ll say “vlak” but the sound is clearly in between /b/ and /v/.
After that, restudying a lesson in my book Čeština Expres 1, I noticed the sentence ”To je Václav Havel” actually sounds “To je Báclaf” - this /b/ sound, again, appearing where a /v/ should be.
I’m guessing it has to do with certain dialectal accent… or maybe /b/ is an allophone of the phoneme v in certain areas where Czech is spoken?
I recorded the audios, but am not sure if I can post them here.
I’d really appreciate it if some native speaker or someone with such knowledge could tell me what is going on here (LOL).
Please, do not get angry with me. I’ve asked about this on a Hinative post and got virtually ridiculed by two native people who said /v/ is the only sound for ”v” in initial position (I know it’s reduced to /f/ in final position and am aware there’s some variance in the way words are linked in speech when spoken by natives from Bohemia or Moravia.
There must be some explanation for the /b/ business, I hope…
Thank you all in advance!

 

[Cautus]

Hello Gusknust,
thank you for your question. If you feel your answer is not answered yet, try to send me the audio to check it out. You will find my email in personal messages.

I have never heard pronaunce "b" instead of "v" in one exception - If I have caught a cold.

Hope it will help,
Take care, Cautus.

 

[Gusknust]

Hello Gusknust,
thank you for your question. If you feel your answer is not answered yet, try to send me the audio to check it out. You will find my email in personal messages.

I have never heard pronaunce "b" instead of "v" in one exception - If I have caught a cold.

Hope it will help,
Take care, Cautus.

Ahoj, Cautus!
Thank you so much for answering.
I'm consulting with a moderator to see if it is ok for me to attach the audios here.
Meanwhile, as you suggested, I'm sending you the three files by e-mail.
I'll write down here the same text I'll send with the audio files:

Here are three recordings with the phoneme /v/.

From what one can hear, the realization of /v/ in Václav Havel is bilabial: not only for the first “v” but also for the second “v” which was supposed to be reduced to /f/, but is also realized as a bilabial sound. In both cases, it sounds much more as a voiced bilabial fricative or plosive – while /v/ should be a voiced labiodental fricative. We can hear the lips touching (bilabial) instead of lower teeth touching the upper lip (labiodental).

 

[Mori.cze]

Hello Gusknust,

Do not worry, we are not going to ridicule you for asking sincere questions!

I would not say, however, that /b/ is an accepted pronunciation of 'v' in Czech, regardless od the position in the word or the dialect.
I can imagine such distortion of the v sound if the speaker "huhňá", ie messes his pronunciation up in a specific way similar to having a cold (as already suggested above)


Edit: forgot again not to use the square brackets on this forum

 

[Gusknust]

Thanks, @Mori.cze and Cautus!

 

[Jagorr]

I'd love to hear the recordings! Do post them, if rules and moderators allow.