RE: CV VC English
[e] and [&] are pretty similar, just like [1] and [E] are, but they're still a bit different. [6] is a hard vowel, just because we don't ever think about it when we say it--it's written "oo" or "ou", but those could also be [o] or [O]. It's really confusing to think of [6] as a sound... But once you get used to it, it's fine.
By the by, if anyone wants to try using my slightly-unfinished "words" reclist (which has you record real English words for the most part), you can ask me about that.