Wow! It’s tough to sort out all the different concepts contained in the above posts.
An RCA IC can be used to carry a balanced signal, BUT not a good idea if the "ground" conductor, which becomes the negative phase in a balanced circuit, is carried on the shield. I would only do it if you know that the ground conductor inside the IC is a discrete wire identical to the wire used to carry the "hot" or positive phase in a balanced circuit. And then the RCA male plug at the output end of an IC carrying a balanced signal must be connected via RCA or an adapter to a balanced circuit. There actually are a few pieces of gear that offer RCA female input jacks that feed a balanced circuit, but it is not usual.
An XLR cable is not inherently balanced. It doesn’t know what it’s carrying. An XLR cable can only carry a balanced signal if it is fed from a balanced output and best if it is feeding also a balanced input.
OP says his Sim has "a dual mono fully balanced differential circuit output." That’s good, but it needs to have a balanced INPUT in order to deal with the balanced output of a cartridge connected in balanced mode.
To derive a balanced signal from a phono cartridge, connect its hot pins to pin2 of an XLR. Then connect its ground pins to pin3 of the XLR. Pin1 is available for equipment grounds, but the pos and neg phases of the audio signal float. The tonearm does not care.