Turntable Platform - What do you place your TT on


I am in that stage of my analogue expedition where I find the weakest link in my vinyl chain is the platform on which my TT is placed. I currently use a simple coffee table like furniture to keep my TT on. My TT is a Nouvelle Platine Verdier and as I see it, it is quite sensitive to the platform it is placed on. I suppose most TTs are like that.

My TT was acquired only few months back and I do not have any rack space for it so I placed it on a wooden furniture near my system. The sound is slow and woolly :-(. I tried placing a TAOC sound creation board between the TT and the furniture, this improved the sound quite a bit but still the immediacy, springiness, transparency that this TT can do is not yet there. I then tried inserting a Finite Element ceraball and that really got things going. Great transparency, speed and immediacy albeit at the cost of lean, hard tones.

These small experiments leads me to believe that the platform for the turntable is extremely crucial to make it perform anywhere close to its potential. More crucial than cables and power conditioning IMO.

The questions that I am trying to answer is:
1. Is it a wrong approach to try variety of platforms on top of a coffee table ? Do I need to invest on a dedicated rack to sort this out ?

2. Can I solve this problem within a budget of $1k ?

The rest of my chain is:
1. RCM Sensor Prelude Phonostage
2. Naim CD5X + Flatcap2
3. Naim Nait 5i integrated
4. Tannoy Turnberry SE speakers

Thanks a lot for your advice.
pani
Consider this article from analog planet:

I once lived on the second floor of an old farmhouse with a springy floor. How it got in my pants, I'll never know! I had a VPI TNT turntable at the time, on a VPI stand that had been filled with leadshot and sand. It was heavy! But the stand still shook and the 'table's suspension couldn't deal with it so the stylus jumped around in the groove, which was not good for it or for the speakers that had to endure intense "pops."

The large horizontal mass of the Eminent Technology II air bearing tonearm only intensified the problem. It was not a good playback environment for any stylus. Nothing I tried worked to limit the floor shaking, particularly at one location between the couch and turntable stand.

Then someone told me to try a turnbuckle or two and that solved the problem—as long as your stand is within a turnbuckle's distance from the wall behind it. Just wedge one turnbuckle between your stand's top shelf and the wall behind it, by turning the screws outward until you achieve a tight fit. Try a second on the other side of the stand but be careful not to wedge the second one in too tightly or the first one will fall down.

Getting both turnbuckles equally tensioned may take a few tries but it will be worth the effort because then you'll find the turnbuckles have mechanically grounded the stand to the wall behind it and the shaking and groove skipping will stop—at least until eventually the micro shaking will cause the turnbuckles to both slip and fall.
Did the OP try something harder like maple, granite or porcelain to improve the "slow" sound?
I found on the limited budget nothing can beat the sand box with the top plate of 1" aluminum and bunch of transistor heat radiators bolted to its bottom and fully sunken into sand. Tried marple blocks, all kinds of compliant and rigid interface devices.
Has anyone tried hard solid wood like Ebony platforms on top of a generic AV rack. I am trying to understand how important is the rack itself compared to the platform on which the TT rests.
Has anyone tried out this platform:
http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/underboard/rhb-20.html

This is quite affordable, comes from a reputed "tweaker" company and seems functional. Anyone aware of this product ?