converting oiled walnut to "rosenut" color

I would not recommend using bleach or alcohol. You could dissolve the adhesive that holds your existing veneer onto the base wood. If your veneer is over particle board you could wind up curling the ends and corners of the veneer. Or causing the veneer to separate.

If your speakers have an existing oil finish I would suggest products from DOF (danish oil finish). It requires detailed work and is labor intensive. How do you plan to protect the speakers in the cabinet and the guts of the speaker? I would empty the cabinet, noting wiring and even marking the screws.

Re-veneer.

A passing thought..If I put a coat of shellac(universal sealer over nearly any finish) on the existing veneer-finish it would seal it. This would give me control over how much of the gel stain to apply and allow me to back-up to a point where no gel stain remains on the veneer. I'd test first, but I believe mineral spirits doesn't dissolve shellac, but it does remove the gel stain.

hififile..I considered danish oil, probably what is on there now, and watco does have a cherry danish oil(I have some), but the color is very light and wouldn't be enough to get me to the rosenut color. I agree the ethanol might lift the veneer edges. Hard telling what kind of adhesive they used back in the 80's. The veneer on the corners right now are perfect.

I've done some searching on the web on how to do this and I'm not finding anything...not even when you start from unfinished walnut.

Good luck with you project. You have a lot of work ahead. But for a little elbow grease and a few bucks you will have a very nice pair of speakers. By the way the post above makes a lot of sense. A new veneer job would be my choice. You could pick out the exact wood you like, have both speakers matched, and not deal with refinishing. I used to sell the Snells in my father's stores a long time ago and they make fine speakers.

yeah..lot to be said for new veneer..short, sweet, & just "pay da man". More than once I've tried 'creative' solutions and found that just pay da man is the better choice. I'll have to beat the local bushes to see if there's anyone around that can do the job. I've done some veneering, but I'm not sure I'd want to take this job on.

Any thoughts on whether new veneer would have any impact on the sound?