You want to avoid sanding back the maple veneer if at all possible, because it's so thin. Any attempt to really pop the quilt should probably be done in a dark stain, which is applied and then as much wiped off as possible with a rag. You can get by with a very light sand with 400 or 600 grit, but very light and really only enough to remove any grain lifted by the stain (if using water-based stain). But this process will darken the wood to some extent, and so darken the overall finish. If it was a solid maple top, you could sand back more until most of the top was bare wood again.

If in doubt, you could try getting some maple veneer and try out the DT alone compared to stain + DT.