The authorities removed the listening devices on Wednesday, people close to the case said.
It seems less fun to me, but then doubtless someone said the same when HMV's flagship Oxford Street store in London removed its listening booths into which people once crowded to hear the latest from Acker Bilk.
Late one night, in Midan Hussein, the expansive square in front of the sacred Sayyidna al-Hussein mosque, which is said to contain the head of Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, I stood unobtrusively behind countless rows of neatly removed shoes, listening quietly to the chanting of the Koran during taraweeh.
To further increase isolation, the Xerxes possesses a spindle that allows the user to centre the record, but which is supposed to be removed during listening so that the disc rests solely on the felt mat.
They know they must remove their listening equipment if they hear a telephone subscriber complain to the operator that "something is wrong with the wire".
For Duncan Partridge, of the ESU, the government's much-criticised 2013 decision to remove speaking and listening assessments from GCSE English grades has proved both "a threat and an opportunity".
Removing speaking and listening from English, and practical work from science has been roundly criticised and opposed by the CBI, by business, by academics and by the Royal Society, among others".
A spokesman for the Department for Education (DfE) acknowledged that removing speaking and listening from English may have contributed to the lower pass rate, but he said this was a move Ofqual, the exams regulator, favoured because speaking and listening marking was inconsistent.
It will also use new noise-cancelling technology made by a UK company called Wolfson Microelectronics, which will allow the phone and headphones to work together to remove background noise while listening to music and making phone calls.
If it has, remove from the oven; listen carefully.
