Is room treatment a science?

Actually trial and error is fast, cheap, and easy. Its what I did and highly recommended. Provided you do it the right way. Otherwise yes it can be incredibly expensive.

Dweller nailed it on the slap echo. Here's how to do it methodically, cheap, and easy. Do what he said, with OC703.

Owens Corning acoustic panels are industry standard. Thicker panels absorb lower frequencies but a couple 2'x3'x1" panels is probably all you will need. They are cheap and light and easy to cut with a box cutter. Here's a picture of my room from many years ago when I was still experimenting. https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm Notice lots of yellow OC703 panels on the walls. They are temporarily held with push pins. That's how easy it can be. 

Notice the dark gray panels in the corners. Those are the same OC703 only cut to fit and covered in fabric. DIY acoustic treatment. Very effective but without making the room sound dead. 

Now here is more recent. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 No more big panels on the walls. Just the corner tunes. Much better! Its rare someone comes in my room and doesn't comment on the acoustics. Its not dead, not lively, but everything is crystal clear.

Acoustic treatment is a balancing act. I don't need side panels to catch the first reflection, probably because my speakers are more than 4' from the side walls. If I did they would be as small as possible, no more than one to two feet square. But this is why you buy the panels and experiment with them like I did. Its so easy you can't believe it.

That's the old school acoustic treatment method. Its great however only if DIY. Because the minute you talk about spending more than to buy a few cheap panels you'll get much better results going with something like Synergistic HFT. So start cheap, and build from there.

Yes.  Room acoustics is a science and is written about by much smarter and more accomplished people than I.  I like to read Floyd Toole when I want to pretend I'm smart.  Otherwise I ask GIK Acoustics for advice.

I will say after lots of measurement and experimentation that treating your room well is never a mistake. My room treatments have outlived everything else I own. It is by far more productive to treat the room than start swapping speakers, cables and amps. 

Great ideas!  The project begins. I thank you!

Trial and error. Big problem. It’s not really science. What’s required in order to have a glimmer of hope of finding the absolute best solution for room treatment is to employ a SPL meter and test tone generator such as 315 Hz, for example, on a test record or CD. That way you can precisely locate the problems in the room, a great many. The primary acoustic anomalies in the room are sound pressure peaks more than 6 dB above the average sound pressure in the room - e.g., room corners, standing waves, first and second reflection points, sound pressure peaks behind the speakers, peaks in the 3D space of the room.

Room echos can be easily identified using wood blocks and walking around the room clacking the blocks together or clapping your hands 👏  until you hear the distinctive echo. Once you have treated the room, use the speaker placement track on the Test CD or LP to find the absolute best speaker locations. If you add more room treatment at a later date, tiny little bowls, Mpingo discs, whatever, you need to reestablish speaker positions as room dynamics will change. But, gentle readers, trial and error for room treatment - like its cousin speaker placement - is like trying to solve X number of simultaneous equations in X + N unknowns.

Yes room treatment is an actual science, if you look at recoding and mixing studios you will see.   But it is very straightforward and pretty easy to do.