Significance Climate change is causing widespread damage to the world’s tropical coral reefs, via increases in cyclones and mass bleaching. Healthy populations of reef fishes facilitate recovery from such events, and recruitment of juvenile fish is influenced by acoustic cues that guide larval orientation, habitat selection, and settlement to reefs. Our matched recordings of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef before and after recent severe degradation demonstrate major changes to natural reef sound. In field experiments using these recordings, we show the potential impact of such acoustic changes. Postdegradation reef sounds were less attractive to young fishes than their predegradation equivalents. Reductions in fish settlement, caused by acoustic changes, may threaten the recovery potential of degraded coral reefs.