Spät Proper Pronunciation

I have added phrases to my vocabulary that contain the word spät.  I am hearing it pronounced like the a in the word spat, or splat.  I also hear it pronounced like the ei in eight or the a in the word ate.  Which is correct?

Danke

I wouldn't like to give you advice on pronunciation apart from using my vocab to find occurrences of "spät" and listening to the tutor and recording yourself. I don't hear a lot of difference between eight and ate but although close, neither sounds exactly right to me.

However there is a video on Youtube  "german umlauts for dummies" that might help. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEpsLVKo5vg&t=254s

I probably should have done some research before posting, so I did some today.  To me it seems that none native Germans will pronounce the ä like ei in eight or a in ate.  Native German speakers sound like a cross between a German e and a.  This seems to be true with ich, and chen.  I hear non Germans pronounce ich like ish and they definitely accentuate the sh.  I can hear the difference between a native and none native when ich and "ch" words are used.  As always, thanks for your help.  I am going to stick with the German version and keep torturing myself to say it like they do.

Badger

Just bear in mind that most people find a slight accent charming.  So, unless you are in the secret service or some activity like that, I wouldn't worry about sounding perfectly like a native speaker.

It is the engineer in me; the relentless pursuit of perfection.   Oh wait, that was a Japanese car maker.